Life  of  Daniel  Webster 

Edward 


•1CSB   LIBRARY 


THE  LIFE 

OP 

DANIEL  WEBSTER 


BY 

EDWARD   EVERETT 


FROM 

The  Makers  of  American  History 


PUBLISHED  BY 

J.  A.  HILL  &   COMPANY 

NEW   YORK 


COPYRIOHT,  1904, 

BY 
THK  UNIVERSITY  SOCIETY,  INC. 


EDITOR'S    PREFACE 


The  author  of  this  biographical  memoir  of  Daniel 
Webster  was  one  of  the  noted  men  of  his  time.  An 
eloquent  Unitarian  clergyman,  Edward  Everett  was 
sought  and  served  as  Professor  of  Greek  Literature 
in  Harvard  College,  was  elected  ten  continuous 
years  in  Congress,  then  four  years  successively  as 
Governor  of  Massachusetts,  was  United  States  min- 
ister to  England  during  Mr.  Webster's  secretary- 
ship of  state  under  Presidents  Harrison  and  Tyler, 
and  was  the  successor  of  that  great  man  in  the  State 
Department  after  Webster's  death.  He  was  Presi- 
dent of  Harvard  for  three  years,  then  elected  United 
State  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  but  feeble  health 
compelled  his  resignation  within  a  year.  He  was 
a  noted  orator,  of  a  polished  and  elaborate  style,  and 
much  sought  after  on  occasions  of  literary  or  politi- 
cal importance.  From  youth  to  death  he  was  a 
friend,  admirer,  and  intimate  associate  of  Daniel 
Webster,  and  therefore  his  account  of  the  public 
services  of  the  Massachusetts  Senator  are  sure  to 
be  authentic  and  to  represent  matters  from  Mr.  Web- 
ster's point  of  view — a  matter  of  concern,  if  we 
would  understand  a  man's  words  and  deeds,  and, 
further  still,  his  motives. 

A.  B.,  VOL.  VI.  —  9          129 


130  EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

The  Memoir  is  naturally  very  full  in  explanation 
of  certain  disputed  matters,  which,  however  signifi- 
cant in  their  day,  have  passed  out  of  remembrance. 
It  contains  many  noble  passages  from  Mr.  Web- 
ster's speeches,  and  correspondence  throwing  light 
upon  matters  of  discussion;  it  enlarges  upon  some 
points  of  importance  in  solving  questions  yet  in  abey- 
ance when  the  memoir  was  written — in  Mr.  Web- 
ster's lifetime,  but  not  now;  and  in  other  ways  it 
presents  matter  which  has  been  deemed  unnecessary 
to  the  purposes  of  this  Series,  aiming  to  give  au- 
thentic, readable,  terse  biographies  of  our  greatest 
Americans.  Material  of  that  nature,  therefore,  has 
been  eliminated;  but  the  interest  and  the  authority 
of  the  memoir  stands  unquestionable,  the  abridg- 
ment serving  merely  to  relieve  it  of  details  no  longer 
of  concern  to  the  general  reader  of  to-day. 


LIFE    OF    DANIEL   WEBSTER 


CHAPTER  I 

Parentage  and  Birth. — Early  Education. — Exeter  Academy. — 
Dartmouth  College. — Study  of  the  Law. — Fryeburg  in  Maine. 
— In  the  Office  of  Hon.  Christopher  Gore. — Admission  to  the 
Bar. — Commencement  of  Practice. — Removal  to  Portsmouth. 

THE  family  of  Daniel  Webster  has  been  estab- 
lished in  America  from  a  very  early  period.  It  was 
of  Scottish  origin,  but  passed  some  time  in  England 
before  the  final  emigration.  Thomas  Webster,  the 
remotest  ancestor  who  can  be  traced,  was  settled  at 
Hampton,  on  the  coast  of  New  Hampshire,  as  early 
as  1636,  sixteen  years  after  the  landing  at  Plymouth, 
and  six  years  from  the  arrival  of  Governor  Win- 
throp  in  Massachusetts  Bay.  The  descent  from 
Thomas  Webster  to  Daniel  can  be  traced  in  the 
church  and  town  records  of  Hampton,  Kingston 
(now  East  Kingston),  and  Salisbury.  These  rec- 
ords and  the  mouldering  headstones  of  village  grave- 
yards are  the  herald's  office  of  the  fathers  of  New 
England.  Noah  Webster,  the  learned  author  of  the 
American  Dictionary  of  the  English  Language,  was 
of  a  collateral  branch  of  the  family. 

Ebenezer  Webster,  the  father  of  Daniel,  is  still 
recollected  in  Kingston  and  Salisbury.  His  personal 
appearance  was  striking.  He  was  erect,  of  athletic 


132  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

stature,  six  feet  high,  broad  and  full  in  the  chest. 
Long  service  in  the  wars  had  given  him  a  military 
air  and  carriage.  He  belonged  to  that  intrepid  bor- 
der race,  which  lined  the  whole  frontier  of  the 
Anglo-American  colonies,  by  turns  farmers,  hunts- 
men, and  soldiers,  and  passing  their  lives  in  one 
long  struggle  with  the  hardships  of  an  infant  settle- 
ment, on  the  skirts  of  a  primeval  forest.  Ebenezer 
Webster  enlisted  early  in  life  as  a  common  soldier, 
in  one  of  those  formidable  companies  of  rangers, 
which  rendered  such  important  services  under  Sir 
Jeffrey  Amherst  and  Wolfe  in  the  Seven  Years' 
War.  He  followed  the  former  distinguished  leader 
in  the  invasion  of  Canada,  attracted  the  attention 
and  gained  the  good-will  of  his  superior  officers  by 
his  brave  and  faithful  conduct,  and  rose  to  the  rank 
of  a  captain  before  the  end  of  the  war. 

Captain  Webster  was  one  of  the  settlers  of  the 
newly  granted  township  of  Salisbury,  and  received 
an  allotment  in  its  northerly  portion.  More  ad- 
venturous than  others  of  the  company,  he  cut  his 
way  deeper  into  the  wilderness,  and  made  the  path 
he  could  not  find.  At  this  time  his  nearest  civilized 
neighbors  on  the  northwest  were  at  Montreal. 

The  following  allusion  of  Mr.  Webster  to  his 
birthplace  will  be  read  with  interest.  It  is  from 
a  speech  delivered  before  a  great  public  assembly  at 
Saratoga,  in  the  year  1840: 

"  It  did  not  happen  to  me  to  be  born  in  a  log  cabin ;  but 
my  elder  brothers  and  sisters  were  born  in  a  log  cabin,  raised 
amid  the  snowdrifts  of  New  Hampshire,  at  a  period  so  early 
that,  when  the  smoke  first  rose  from  its  rude  chimney,  and 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  133 

curled  over  the  frozen  hills,  there  was  no  similar  evidence  of  a 
white  man's  habitation  between  it  and  the  settlements  on  the 
rivers  of  Canada.  Its  remains  still  exist.  I  make  to  it  an 
annual  visit.  I  carry  my  children  to  it  to  teach  them  the  hard- 
ships endured  by  the  generations  which  have  gone  before  them. 
I  love  to  dwell  on  the  tender  recollections,  the  kindred  ties,  the 
early  affections,  and  the  touching  narratives  and  incidents, 
which  mingle  with  all  I  know  of  this  primitive  family  abode." 

Soon  after  his  settlement  in  Salisbury,  the  first 
wife  of  Ebenezer  Webster  having  deceased,  he  mar- 
ried Abigail  Eastman,  who  became  the  mother  of 
Ezekiel  and  Daniel  Webster,  the  only  sons  of  the 
second  marriage.  Like  the  mothers  of  so  many 
men  of  eminence,  she  was  a  woman  of  more  than 
ordinary  intellect,  and  possessed  a  force  of  character 
which  was  felt  throughout  the  humble  circle  in  which 
she  moved. 

About  the  time  of  his  second  marriage,  Captain 
Ebenezer  Webster  erected  a  frame  house  hard  by  the 
log  cabin.  He  dug  a  well  near  it  and  planted  an  elm 
sapling.  In  this  house  Daniel  Webster  was  born, 
in  the  last  year  of  the  Revolutionary  war,  on  the 
1 8th  of  January,  1782. 

The  interval  between  the  peace  of  1763  and  the 
breaking  out  of  the  war  of  the  Revolution  was  one 
of  excitement  and  anxiety  throughout  the  Colonies. 
Like  so  many  of  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  the 
former  war,  Captain  Webster  obeyed  the  first  call 
to  arms  in  the  new  struggle.  He  commanded  a  com- 
pany, chiefly  composed  of  his  own  townspeople, 
friends,  and  kindred,  who  followed  him  through 
the  greater  portion  of  the  war.  He  was  at  the  battle 
of  White  Plains,  and  was  at  West  Point  when  the 


134  AMERICAN    BIOGRAPHY 

treason  of  Arnold  was  discovered.  He  acted  as  a 
Major  under  Stark  at  Bennington,  and  contributed 
his  share  to  the  success  of  that  eventful  day. 

If  the  character  and  situation  of  the  place,  and 
the  circumstances  under  which  Daniel  Webster 
passed  the  first  years  of  his  life,  might  seem  adverse 
to  the  early  cultivation  of  his  extraordinary  talent, 
it  still  cannot  be  doubted  that  they  possessed  influ- 
ences favorable  to  elevation  and  strength  of  char- 
acter. The  hardships  of  an  infant  settlement  and 
border  life,  the  traditions  of  a  long  series  of  Indian 
wars,  and  incidents  of  two  mighty  national  contests, 
in  which  an  honored  parent  had  borne  his  part,  were 
circumstances  to  leave  an  abiding  impression  on  the 
mind  of  a  thoughtful  child,  and  induce  an  early 
maturity  of  character. 

It  may  well  be  supposed  that  Mr.  Webster's  early 
opportunities  for  education  were  very  scanty.  Some- 
thing that  was  called  a  school  was  kept  for  two 
or  three  months  in  the  winter,  frequently  by  an 
itinerant,  too  often  a  pretender,  claiming  only  to 
teach  a  little  reading,  writing,  and  ciphering,  and 
wholly  incompetent  to  give  any  valuable  assistance 
to  a  clever  youth  in  learning  either. 

From  the  village  library  at  Salisbury,  also,  Mr. 
Webster  was  able  to  obtain  a  moderate  supply  of 
good  reading. 

The  year  before  Mr.  Webster  was  born  was  ren- 
dered memorable  in  New  Hampshire  by  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Acadmey  at  Exeter,  through  the  munifi- 
cence of  the  Honorable  John  Phillips.  To  this 
Academy  Mr.  Webster  was  taken  by  his  father  in 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  135 

May,  1796.  He  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  only  a 
few  months'  instruction  in  this  excellent  school; 
but,  short  as  the  period  was,  his  mind  appears  to 
have  received  an  impulse  of  a  most  genial  and 
quickening  character.  The  following  anecdote  from 
Mr.  March's  "  Reminiscences  of  Congress "  will 
not  be  thought  out  of  place  in  this  connection : — 

"  It  may  appear  somewhat  singular  that  the  greatest  orator  of 
modern  times  should  have  evinced  in  his  boyhood  the  strongest 
antipathy  to  public  declamation.  This  fact,  however,  is  estab- 
lished by  his  own  words,  which  have  recently  appeared  in  print. 
'  I  believe,'  says  Mr.  Webster,  '  I  made  tolerable  progress  in 
most  branches  which  I  attended  to  while  in  this  school;  but 
there  was  one  thing  I  could  not  do.  I  could  not  make  a  decla- 
mation. I  could  not  speak  before  the  school.  The  kind  and 
excellent  Buckminster  sought  especially  to  persuade  me  to  per- 
form the  exercise  of  declamation,  like  other  boys,  but  I  could 
not  do  it.  Many  a  piece  did  I  commit  to  memory,  and  recite 
and  rehearse  in  my  own  room,  over  and  over  again ;  yet  when 
the  day  came,  when  the  school  collected  to  hear  declamations, 
when  my  name  was  called,  and  I  saw  all  eyes  turned  to  my  seat, 
I  could  not  raise  myself  from  it.  Sometimes  the  instructors 
frowned,  sometimes  they  smiled.  Mr.  Buckminster  always 
pressed  and  entreated,  most  winningly,  that  I  would  venture. 
But  I  never  could  command  sufficient  resolution.'  Such  diffi- 
dence of  its  own  powers  may  be  natural  to  genius,  nervously 
fearful  of  being  unable  to  reach  that  ideal  which  it  proposes  as 
the  only  full  consummation  of  its  wishes.  It  is  fortunate,  how- 
ever, for  the  age,  fortunate  for  all  ages,  that  Mr.  Webster  by 
determined  will  and  frequent  trial  overcame  this  moral  in- 
capacity, as  his  great  prototype,  the  Grecian  orator,  subdued  his 
physical  defect." — pp.  12,  13. 

After  a  few  months  well  spent  at  Exeter,  Mr. 
Webster  returned  home,  and  in  February,  1797,  was 
placed  by  his  father  under  the  Rev.  Samuel  Wood, 
the  minister  of  the  neighboring  town  of  Boscawen, 


136  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

He  lived  in  Mr.  Wood's  family,  and  for  board  and  in- 
struction the  entire  charge  was  one  dollar  per  week. 

On  their  way  to  Mr.  Wood's,  Mr.  Webster's 
father  first  opened  to  his  son,  now  fifteen  years  old, 
the  design  of  sending  him  to  college,  the  thought 
of  which  had  never  before  entered  his  mind.  "  I 
remember,"  says  Mr.  Webster,  in  an  autobiographi- 
cal memorandum  of  his  boyhood,  "  the  very  hill 
which  we  were  ascending,  through  deep  snows,  in 
a  New  England  sleigh,  when  my  father  made  known 
this  purpose  to  me.  I  could  not  speak.  How  could 
he,  I  thought,  with  so  large  a  family  and  in  such  nar- 
row circumstances,  think  of  incurring  so  great  an 
expense  for  me.  A  warm  glow  ran  all  over  me,  and 
I  laid  my  head  on  my  father's  shoulder  and  wept." 

From  February  till  August,  1797,  Mr.  Webster 
remained  under  the  instruction  of  Mr.  Wood,  at 
Boscawen,  and  completed  his  preparation  for  col- 
lege. It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  that  the  prepara- 
tion was  imperfect.  Short  as  was  his  period 
of  preparation,  however,  it  enabled  Mr.  Web- 
ster to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  knowledge  of  the 
classical  writers,  especially  the  Latin,  which  was 
greatly  increased  in  college,  and  which  was  kept 
up  by  constant  recurrence  to  the  great  models  of 
antiquity,  during  the  busiest  periods  of  active  life. 
The  happiness  of  Mr.  Webster's  occasional  cita- 
tions from  the  Latin  classics  was  a  striking  feature 
of  his  oratory. 

Mr.  Webster  entered  Dartmouth  College  in  1797, 
and  passed  the  four  academic  years  in  assiduous 
study.  He  was  not  only  distinguished  for  his  at- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  137 

tention  to  the  prescribed  studies,  but  devoted  him- 
self to  general  reading,  especially  to  English  history 
and  literature.  He  took  part  in  the  publication  of 
a  little  weekly  newspaper,  furnishing  selections  from 
books  and  magazines,  with  an  occasional  article 
from  his  own  pen.  He  delivered  addresses,  also, 
before  the  college  societies,  some  of  which  were 
published.  In  the  winter  vacations  he  taught  school. 

Mr.  Webster  completed  his  college  course  in  Au- 
gust, 1 80 1,  and  immediately  entered  the  office  of 
Mr.  Thompson,  the  next-door  neighbor  of  his  father, 
as  a  student  of  law,  where  he  remained  until  appli- 
cation was  made  to  him  to  take  charge  of  an  acad- 
emy at  Fryeburg  in  Maine,  upon  a  salary  of  about 
one  dollar  per  diem,  being  less  than  is  now  paid  for 
the  coarsest  kind  of  unskilled  manual  labor.  As  he 
was  able,  besides,  to  earn  enough  to' pay  for  his  board 
and  to  defray  his  other  expenses  by  acting  as  assist- 
ant to  the  register  of  deeds  for  the  county,  his  sal- 
ary was  all  saved, — a  fund  for  his  own  professional 
education  and  to  help  his  brother  through  college. 

In  September,  1802,  Mr.  Webster  returned  to 
Salisbury,  and  resumed  his  studies  under  Mr. 
Thompson,  in  whose  office  he  remained  for  eighteen 
months.  Besides  his  law  studies,  he  gave  a  good 
deal  of  time  to  general  reading,  and  especially  the 
study  of  the  Latin  classics,  English  history,  and  the 
volumes  of  Shakespeare.  In  order  to  obtain  a 
wider  compass  of  knowledge,  and  to  learn  some- 
thing of  the  language  not  to  be  gained  from  the 
classics,  he  read  through  attentively  PuffendorfFs 
"  Latin  History  of  England," 


138  AMERICAN    BIOGRAPHY 

In  July,  1804,  he  took  up  his  residence  in  Boston, 
and  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  pursuing  his  legal 
studies  for  six  or  eight  months  in  the  office  of  the 
Hon.  Christopher  Gore,  afterwards  Governor  of 
Massachusetts,  a  lawyer  of  eminence,  a  statesman 
and  a  civilian,  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school  of 
manners,  and  a  rare  example  of  distinguished  intel- 
lectual qualities,  united  with  practical  good  sense 
and  judgment.  He  had  passed  several  years  in  Eng- 
land as  a  commissioner,  under  Jay's  treaty,  for  liqui- 
dating the  claims  of  citizens  of  the  United  States 
for  seizures  by  British  cruisers  in  the  early  wars  of 
the  French  Revolution.  His  library,  amply  fur- 
nished with  works  of  professional  and  general  lit- 
erature, his  large  experience  of  men  and  things  at 
home  and  abroad,  and  his  uncommon  amenity  of 
temper,  combined  to  make  the  period  passed  by  Mr. 
Webster  in  his  office  one  of  the  pleasantest  in  his 
life.  These  advantages,  it  hardly  need  be  said,  were 
not  thrown  away. 

Just  as  he  was  about  to  be  admitted  to  practise 
in  the  Suffolk  Court  of  Common  Pleas  in  Massa- 
chusetts, the  place  of  clerk  in  the  Court  of  Com- 
mon Pleas  for  the  county  of  Hillsborough,  in  New 
Hampshire,  became  vacant.  Of  this  court  Mr.  Web- 
ster's father  had  been  made  one  of  the  judges,  in 
conformity  with  a  very  common  practice  at  that 
time,  of  placing  on  the  side  bench  of  the  lower  courts 
men  of  intelligence  and  respectability,  though  not 
lawyers.  From  regard  to  Judge  Webster,  the  va- 
cant clerkship  was  offered  by  his  colleagues  to  his 
son.  The  fees  of  the  office  were  about  fifteen  hun- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  139 

dred  dollars  per  annum,  which  in  those  days  and  in 
that  region  was  not  so  much  a  competence  as  a  for- 
tune. Mr.  Webster  himself  was  disposed  to  accept 
the  office.  It  promised  an  immediate  provision  in 
lieu  of  a  distant  and  doubtful  prospect.  It  enabled 
him  at  once  to  bring  comfort  into  his  father's 
family.  But  the  earnest  dissuasions  of  Mr.  Gore, 
who  saw  in  this  step  the  certain  postponement,  per- 
haps the  final  defeat,  of  all  hopes  of  professional  ad- 
vancement, prevented  his  accepting  the  office.  In 
the  spring  of  the  same  year  (1805)  Mr.  Webster 
was  admitted  to  the  practice  of  the  law  in  the  Court 
of  Common  Pleas  for  Suffolk  County,  Boston. 

Immediately  on  his  admission  to  the  bar,  Mr. 
Webster  went  to  Amherst,  in  New  Hampshire, 
where  his  father's  court  was  in  session;  from  that 
place  he  went  home  with  his  father,  who  was  now 
infirm  from  the  advance  of  years,  and  had  no  other 
sop  at  home.  Under  these  circumstances  Mr.  Web- 
ster opened  an  office  at  Boscawen,  not  far  from  his 
father's  residence,  and  commenced  the  practice  of 
the  law  in  this  retired  spot.  Judge  Webster  lived 
but  a  year ;  long  enough,  however,  to  hear  his  son's 
first  argument  in  court,  and  to  be  gratified  with  the 
confident  predictions  of  his  future  success. 

In  May,  1807,  Mr.  Webster  was  admitted  as  an 
attorney  and  counsellor  of  the  Superior  Court  in 
New  Hampshire,  and  in  September  of  that  year, 
relinquishing  his  office  in  Boscawen  to  his  brother 
Ezekiel,  he  removed  to  Portsmouth,  in  conformity 
with  his  original  intention.  Here  he  remained  in 
the  practice  of  his  profession  for  nine  successive 


140  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

years.  They  were  years  of  assiduous  labor,  and  of 
unremitted  devotion  to  the  study  and  practice  of  the 
law.  He  was  associated  with  several  persons  of 
great  eminence,  citizens  of  New  Hampshire  or  of 
Massachusetts  occasionally  practising  at  the  Ports- 
mouth bar.  Among  the  latter  were  Samuel  Dexter 
and  Joseph  Story;  of  the  residents  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, Jeremiah  Mason  was  the  most  distinguished. 
Often  opposed  to  each  other  as  lawyers,  a  strong 
personal  friendship  grew  up  between  them,  which 
ended  only  with  the  death  of  Mr.  Mason. 

Although  dividing  with  Mr.  Mason  the  best  of  the 
business  of  Portsmouth,  and  indeed  of  all  the  eastern 
portion  of  the  State,  Mr.  Webster's  practice  was 
mostly  on  the  circuit.  He  followed  the  Superior 
Court  through  the  principal  counties  of  the  State, 
and  was  retained  in  nearly  every  important  cause. 
It  is  a  somewhat  singular  fact  in  his  professional 
life,  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  occasions  on 
which  he  has  been  associated  with  the  Attorney- 
General  of  the  United  States  for  the  time  being, 
he  has  hardly  appeared  ten  times  as  junior  counsel. 
Within  the  sphere  in  which  he  was  placed,  he  may 
be  said  to  have  risen  at  once  to  the  head  of  his  pro- 
fession; not,  however,  like  Erskine  and  some  other 
celebrated  British  lawyers,  by  one  and  the  same 
bound,  at  once  to  fame  and  fortune.  Mr.  Web- 
ster's practice  in  New  Hampshire,  though  probably 
as  good  as  that  of  any  of  his  contemporaries,  was 
never  lucrative.  Although  exclusively  devoted  to  his 
profession,  it  afforded  him  no  more  than  a  bare 
livelihood. 


CHAPTER  II 

Public  Life. — Election  to  Congress. — Extra  Session  of  1813. — 
Foreign  Relations. — Berlin  and  Milan  Decrees. — Naval  De- 
fence.— Reflected  to  Congress  in  1814. — Peace  with  England. 
— National  Bank. — Battle  of  New  Orleans. — New  Questions. 
— The  Tariff  Policy. — Specie  Payments. — Removal  to  Boston. 

MR.  WEBSTER  had  hitherto  taken  less  interest  in 
politics  than  has  been  usual  with  the  young  men  of 
talent,  at  least  with  the  young  lawyers  of  America. 
In  fact,  at  the  time  to  which  the  preceding  narrative 
refers,  the  politics  of  the  country  were  in  such  a 
state,  that  there  was  scarce  any  course  which  could 
be  pursued  with  entire  satisfaction  by  a  patriotic 
young  man  sagacious  enough  to  penetrate  behind 
mere  party  names,  and  to  view  public  questions  in 
their  true  light.  The  United  States,  although  not 
actually  drawn  to  any  great  depth  into  the  vortex 
of  the  French  Revolution,  were  powerfully  affected 
by  it.  The  deadly  struggle  of  the  two  great  Euro- 
pean belligerents,  in  which  the  neutral  rights  of  this 
country  were  grossly  violated  by  both,  gave  a  com- 
plexion to  our  domestic  politics. 

The  aggressions  of  the  belligerents  on  our  neutral 
commerce  continued,  and,  by  the  joint  effect  of  the 
Berlin  and  Milan  Decrees  and  the  Orders  in  Council, 
it  was  all  but  swept  from  the  ocean.  In  this  state 
of  things  two  courses  were  open  to  the  United 

141 


142  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

States,  as  a  growing  neutral  power:  one,  that  of 
prompt  resistance  to  the  aggressive  policy  of  the 
belligerents ;  the  other,  that  which  was  called  "  the 
restrictive  system,"  which  consisted  in  an  embargo 
on  our  own  vessels,  with  a  view  to  withdraw  them 
from  the  grasp  of  foreign  cruisers,  and  in  laws 
inhibiting  commercial  intercourse  with  England  and 
France.  There  was  a  division  of  opinion  in  the 
cabinet  of  Mr.  Jefferson  and  in  the  country  at  large. 
The  latter  policy  was  finally  adopted.  It  fell  in  with 
the  general  views  of  Mr.  Jefferson  against  com- 
mitting the  country  to  the  risks  of  foreign  war. 

Although  the  discipline  of  party  was  sufficiently 
strong  to  cause  this  system  of  measures  to  be  adopted 
and  pursued  for  years,  it  was  never  cordially  ap- 
proved by  the  people  of  the  United  States  of  any 
party.  It  continued,  however,  to  form  the  basis  of 
our  party  divisions  till  the  war  of  1812.  In  these 
divisions,  as  has  been  intimated,  both  parties  were 
in  a  false  position ;  the  one  supporting  and  forcing 
upon  the  country  a  system  of  measures  not  cordially 
approved,  even  by  themselves;  the  other,  a  power- 
less minority,  zealously  opposing  those  measures, 
but  liable  for  that  reason  to  be  thought  backward 
in  asserting  the  neutral  rights  of  the  country.  A 
few  men  of  well-balanced  minds,  true  patriotism, 
and  sound  statesmanship,  in  all  sections  of  the  coun- 
try, were  able  to  unite  fidelity  to  their  party  associa- 
tions with  a  comprehensive  view  to  the  good  of 
the  country.  Among  these,  mature  beyond  his  years, 
was  Mr.  Webster.  As  early  as  1806  he  had,  in  a 
public  oration,  presented  an  impartial  view  of  the 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  143 

foreign  relations  of  the  country  in  reference  to 
both  belligerents,  of  the  importance  of  our  commer- 
cial interests  and  the  duty  of  protecting  them. 

At  length  the  foreign  belligerents  themselves  per- 
ceived the  folly  and  injustice  of  their  measures.  In 
the  strife  which  should  inflict  the  greatest  injury 
on  the  other,  they  had  paralyzed  the  commerce  of 
the  world  and  embittered  the  minds  of  all  the  neu- 
tral powers.  The  Berlin  and  Milan  Decrees  were 
revoked,  but  in  a  manner  so  unsatisfactory  as  in  a 
great  degree  to  impair  the  pacific  tendency  of  the 
measure.  The  Orders  in  Council  were  also  re- 
scinded in  the  summer  of  1812.  War,  however, 
justly  provoked  by  each  and  both  of  the  parties, 
had  meantime  been  declared  by  Congress  against 
England,  and  active  hostilities  had  been  commenced 
on  the  frontier.  At  the  elections  next  ensuing,  Mr. 
Webster  was  brought  forward  as  a  candidate  for 
Congress  of  the  Federal  party  of  that  day,  and,  hav- 
ing been  chosen  in  the  month  of  November,  1812. 
he  took  his  seat  at  the  first  session  of  the  Thirteenth 
Congress,  which  was  an  extra  session  called  in  May, 
1813.  Although  his  course  of  life  hitherto  had  been 
in  what  may  be  called  a  provincial  sphere,  and  he  had 
never  been  a  member  even  of  the  legislature  of  his 
native  State,  a  presentiment  of  his  ability  seems  to 
have  gone  before  him  to  Washington.  He  was,  in 
the  organization  of  the  House,  placed  by  Mr.  Clay, 
its  Speaker,  upon  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
a  select  committee  at  that  time,  and  of  necessity 
the  leading  committee  in  a  state  of  war. 

There  were  many  men  of  uncommon  ability  in  the 


144  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

Thirteenth  Congress.  Rarely  has  so  much  talent 
been  found  at  any  one  time  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives. Although  among  the  youngest  and  least 
experienced  members  of  the  body,  Mr.  Webster  rose, 
from  the  first,  to  a  position  of  undisputed  equality 
with  the  most  distinguished.  The  times  were  criti- 
cal. The  immediate  business  to  be  attended  to  was 
the  financial  and  military  conduct  of  the  war,  a  sub- 
ject of  difficulty  and  importance.  The  position  of 
Mr.  Webster  was  not  such  as  to  require  or  permit 
him  to  take  a  lead ;  but  it  was  his  steady  aim,  with- 
out the  sacrifice  of  his  principles,  to  pursue  such  a 
course  as  would  tend  most  effectually  to  extricate 
the  country  from  the  embarrassments  of  her  present 
position,  and  to  lead  to  peace  upon  honorable  terms. 

Mr.  Webster  was  not  a  member  of  Congress  when 
war  was  declared,  nor  in  any  other  public  station. 
He  was  too  deeply  read  in  the  law  of  nations,  and 
regarded  that  august  code  with  too  much  respect, 
not  to  contemplate  with  indignation  its  infraction 
by  both  the  belligerents. 

Early  in  the  session,  he  moved  a  series  of  resolu- 
tions of  inquiry,  relative  to  the  repeal  of  the  Berlin 
and  Milan  Decrees.  The  object  of  these  resolutions 
was  to  elicit  a  communication  on  this  subject  from 
the  executive,  which  would  unfold  the  proximate 
causes  of  the  war,  as  far  as  they  were  to  be  sought 
in  those  famous  Decrees,  and  in  the  Orders  in  Coun- 
cil. On  the  loth  of  June,  1813,  Mr.  Webster  deliv- 
ered his  maiden  speech  on  these  resolutions.  No 
full  report  of  this  speech  has  been  preserved.  It  is 
known  only  from  extremely  imperfect  sketches,  con- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  145 

tained  in  the  contemporaneous  newspaper  accounts 
of  the  proceedings  of  Congress,  from  the  recollec- 
tion of  those  who  heard  it,  and  from  the  general  tra- 
dition. It  was  marked  by  all  the  characteristics 
of  Mr.  Webster's  maturest  parliamentary  efforts, — 
moderation  of  tone,  precision  of  statement,  force  of 
reasoning,  absence  of  ambitious  rhetoric  and  high- 
flown  language,  occasional  bursts  of  true  eloquence, 
and,  pervading  the  whole,  a  genuine  and  fervid 
patriotism.  We  have  reason  to  believe  that  its  effect 
upon  the  House  is  accurately  described  in  the  follow- 
ing extract  from  Mr.  March's  work : 

"  The  speech  took  the  House  by  surprise,  not  so  much  from 
its  eloquence  as  from  the  vast  amount  of  historical  knowledge 
and  illustrative  ability  displayed  in  it.  How  a  person,  un- 
trained to  forensic  contests  and  unused  to  public  affairs,  could 
exhibit  so  much  parliamentary  tact,  such  nice  appreciation  of 
the  difficulties  of  a  difficult  question,  and  such  quiet  facility  in 
surmounting  them,  puzzled  the  mind.  The  age  and  inexperience 
of  the  speaker  had  prepared  the  House  for  no  such  display,  and 
astonishment  for  a  time  subdued  the  expression  of  its 
admiration." — pp.  35,  36. 

The  resolutions  moved  by  Mr.  Webster  prevailed 
by  a  large  majority,  and  drew  forth  from  Mr.  Mon- 
roe, then  Secretary  of  State,  an  elaborate  and  in- 
structive report  upon  the  subject  to  which  they 
referred. 

We  have  already  observed,  that,  as  early  as  1806, 
Mr.  Webster  had  expressed  himself  in  favor  of 
the  protection  of  our  commerce  against  the  aggres- 
sions of  both  the  belligerents.  Some  years  later, 
before  the  war  was  declared,  but  when  it  was  visibly 

A.  B.,  VOL.  VI.  —  10 


146  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

impending,  he  had  put  forth  some  vigorous  articles 
to  the  same  effect.  In  an  oration  delivered  in  1812, 
he  had  said :  "  A  navy  sufficient  for  the  defence 
of  our  coasts  and  harbors,  for  the  convoy  of  impor- 
tant branches  of  our  trade,  and  sufficient  also  to 
give  our  enemies  to  understand,  when  they  injure 
us,  that  they  too  are  vulnerable,  and  that  we  have 
the  power  of  retaliation  as  well  as  of  defence,  seems 
to  be  the  plain,  necessary,  indispensable  policy  of 
the  nation.  It  is  the  dictate  of  nature  and  common 
sense,  that  means  of  defence  shall  have  relation  to 
the  danger." 

The  principal  subjects  on  which  Mr.  Webster 
addressed  the  House  during  the  Thirteenth  Congress 
were  his  own  resolutions,  the  increase  of  the  navy, 
the  repeal  of  the  embargo,  and  an  appeal  from  the  de- 
cision of  the  chair  on  a  motion  for  the  previous 
question.  His  speeches  on  those  questions  raised 
him  to  the  front  rank  of  debaters.  He  manifested 
upon  his  entrance  into  public  life  that  variety  of 
knowledge,  familiarity  with  the  history  and  tradi- 
tions of  the  government,  and  self-possession  on  the 
floor,  which  in  most  cases  are  acquired  by  time  and 
long  experience.  They  gained  for  him  the  reputa- 
tion indicated  by  the  well-known  remark  of  Mr. 
Lowndes,  that  "  the  North  had  not  his  equal,  nor 
the  South  his  superior."  It  was  not  the  least  con- 
spicuous of  the  strongly  marked  qualities  of  his 
character  as  a  public  man,  disclosed  at  this  early 
period,  and  uniformly  preserved  throughout  his 
career,  that,  at  a  time  when  party  spirit  went  to  great 
lengths,  he  never  permitted  himself  to  be  infected 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  147 

with  its  contagion.  His  opinions  were  firmly  main- 
tained and  boldy  expressed;  but  without  bitterness 
toward  those  who  differed  from  him.  He  cultivated 
friendly  relations  on  both  sides  of  the  House,  and 
gained  the  personal  respect  even  of  those  with  whom 
he  most  differed. 

In  August,  1814,  Mr.  Webster  was  reflected  to 
Congress.  The  treaty  of  Ghent  was  signed  in  De- 
cember, 1814,  and  the  prospect  of  peace,  universally 
welcomed  by  the  country,  opened  on  the  Thirteenth 
Congress  toward  the  close  of  its  third  session.  Ear- 
lier in  the  session  a  project  for  a  Bank  of  the  United 
States  was  introduced  into  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives on  the  recommendation  of  Mr.  Dallas,  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury.  The  charter  of  the  first  in- 
corporated bank  of  the  United  States  had  expired 
in  1811.  No  general  complaints  of  mismanage- 
ment or  abuse  had  been  raised  against  this  institu- 
tion ;  but  the  opinions  entertained  by  what  has  been 
called  the  "  Virginia  School  "  of  politicians,  against 
the  constitutionality  of  a  national  bank,  prevented 
the  renewal  of  the  charter.  The  want  of  such  an 
institution  was  severely  felt  in  the  war  of  1812,  al- 
though it  is  probable  that  the  amount  of  assistance 
which  it  could  have  afforded  the  financial  opera- 
tions of  the  government  was  greatly  overrated. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  both  the  Treasury  Department  and 
Congress  were  now  strongly  disposed  to  create  a 
bank.  Its  capital  was  to  consist  of  forty-five  mil- 
lions of  the  public  stocks  and  five  millions  of  specie, 
and  it  was  to  be  under  obligation  to  lend  the  gov- 
ernment thirty  millions  of  dollars  on  demand.  To 


148  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

enable  it  to  exist  under  these  conditions,  it  was  re- 
lieved from  the  necessity  of  redeeming  its  notes  in 
specie.  In  other  words,  it  was  an  arrangement  for 
the  issue  of  an  irredeemable  paper  currency.  It  was 
opposed  mainly  on  this  ground  by  Mr.  Calhoun, 
Mr.  Webster,  Mr.  Lowndes,  and  others  of  the  ablest 
men  on  both  sides  of  the  House,  as  a  project 
not  only  unsound  in  its  principles,  but  sure  to  in- 
crease the  derangement  of  the  currency  already 
existing.  The  project  was  supported  as  an  admin- 
istration measure,  but  the  leading  members  from 
South  Carolina  and  their  friends  united  with  the 
regular  opposition  against  it,  and  it  was  lost  by 
the  casting  vote  of  the  Speaker,  Mr.  Cheves.  It 
was  revived  by  reconsideration,  on  motion  of  Mr. 
Webster,  and  such  amendments  introduced  that 
it  passed  the  House  by  a  large  majority.  It  was 
carried  through  the  Senate  in  this  amended  form 
with  difficulty,  but  it  was  negatived  by  Mr.  Madi- 
son, being  one  of  the  two  cases  in  which  he  exer- 
cised the  veto  power  during  his  eight  years'  admin- 
istration. 

On  the  8th  of  January  of  the  year  1815,  the  vic- 
tory at  New  Orleans  was  gained  by  General  Jack- 
son. No  occurrence  on  land,  in  the  course  of  the 
war,  was  of  equal  immediate  interest,  or  destined 
to  have  so  abiding  an  influence  on  the  future.  Be- 
sides averting  the  indescribable  calamity  of  the  sack 
of  a  populous  and  flourishing  city,  it  showed  the 
immense  military  power  of  the  volunteer  force  of 
the  country,  when  commanded  with  energy  and 
skill.  The  praises  of  General  Jackson  were  on  every 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  149 

tongue  throughout  the  land,  and  Congress  responded 
to  the  grateful  feelings  of  the  country.  A  vote  of 
thanks  was  unanimously  passed  by  the  Senate  and 
House  of  Representatives. 

In  the  interval  between  the  Thirteenth  and  Four- 
teenth Congresses  (March-December,  1815),  Mr. 
Webster  was  busily  engaged  at  home  in  the  practice 
of  the  law.  He  had  begun  at  this  time  to  consider 
the  expediency  of  removing  his  residence  to  a  wider 
professional  field.  Though  receiving  a  full  share 
of  the  best  business  of  New  Hampshire,  it  ceased 
to  yield  an  adequate  support  for  his  increasing  fam- 
ily, and  still  more  failed  to  afford  any  thing  like 
the  just  reward  of  his  legal  attainment  and  labors. 
The  destruction  of  his  house,  furniture,  library,  and 
many  important  manuscript  collections,  in  "  the 
great  fire"  at  Portsmouth,  in  December,  1813.  had 
entailed  upon  him  the  loss  of  the  entire  fruits  of  his 
professional  industry  up  to  that  time,  and  made  it 
necessary  for  him  to  look  around  him  for  the  means 
of  a  considerably  increased  income.  He  hesitated 
between  Albany  and  Boston ;  and,  in  consequence 
of  this  indecision,  the  execution  of  his  purpose  was 
for  the  present  postponed. 

The  Fourteenth  Congress  assembled  in  December, 
1815.  An  order  of  things  in  a  great  degree  new 
presented  itself.  After  a  momentary  pause,  the 
country  rose  with  an  elastic  bound  from  the  pressure 
of  the  war.  Old  party  dissensions  had  lost  much 
of  their  interest.  The  condition  of  Europe  had 
undergone  a  great  change.  The  power  of  the  French 
emperor  was  annihilated;  and  with  the  return  of 


150  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

general  peace,  all  occasions  for  belligerent  encroach- 
ments on  neutral  rights  had  ceased.  Two-thirds  of 
our  domestic  feuds  had  turned  on  foreign  questions, 
and  there  was  a  spontaneous  feeling  throughout 
the  country  in  favor  of  healing  the  wounds  which 
these  feuds  had  inflicted  upon  its  social  and  political 
harmony.  Nor  was  this  all.  New  relations  and  in- 
terests had  arisen.  The  public  debt  had  been  swelled 
by  the  war  expenditure  to  a  large  amount,  and  its 
interest  was  to  be  paid.  Domestic  manufactures 
had,  in  some  of  the  States,  grown  up  into  import- 
ance through  the  operation  of  the  restrictive  system 
and  the  war,  and  asked  for  protection.  The  West 
began  to  fill  up  with  unexampled  rapidity,  and  re- 
quired new  facilities  of  communication  with  the 
Atlantic  coast.  The  navy  had  fought  itself  into 
favor,  and  the  war  with  Algiers,  in  1816,  forbade 
its  reduction  below  the  recent  war  establishment. 
The  necessity  of  a  system  of  coast  defences  had 
made  itself  felt.  With  all  these  loud  calls  for  in- 
creased expenditure,  the  public  finances  were  em- 
barrassed and  the  currency  was  in  extreme  disorder. 
In  a  word,  there  were  new  and  great  wants  and  in- 
terests at  home  and  abroad,  throwing  former  topics 
of  dissension  into  the  shade,  and  calling  for  the  high- 
est efforts  of  statesmanship  and  a  patriotism  embrac- 
ing the  whole  country. 

Among  those  who  responded  with  the  greatest 
cordiality  and  promptness  to  the  new  demand  were 
the  distinguished  statesmen  of  the  preceding  Con- 
gress, and  conspicuous  among  them  Clay,  Calhoun, 
Webster,  Lowndes,  and  Cheves.  It  will  excite  some 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  l$l 

surprise  at  the  present  day,  in  consideration  of  the 
political  history  of  the  last  thirty  years,  to  find  how 
little  difference  as  to  leading  measures  existed  in 
1816  between  these  distinguished  statesmen.  No  line 
of  general  party  difference  separated  the  members 
of  the  first  Congress  after  the  peace.  The  great 
measures  brought  forward  were  a  national  bank, 
internal  improvement,  and  a  protective  tariff.  On 
these  various  subjects  members  divided,  not  in  ac- 
cordance with  any  party  organization,  but  from  in- 
dividual convictions,  supposed  sectional  interests, 
and  general  public  grounds.  On  the  two  first-named 
subjects  no  systematic  difference  of  views  disclosed 
itself  between  the  great  Northern  and  Southern 
leaders;  on  the  third  alone  there  was  diversity  of 
opinion.  In  the  Northern  States  considerable  ad- 
vances had  been  made  in  manufacturing  industry, 
in  different  places,  especially  at  Waltham  (Mass.)  : 
but  a  great  manufacturing  interest  had  not  yet 
grown  up.  The  strength  of  this  interest  as  yet  lay 
mainly  in  Pennsylvania.  Navigation  and  foreign 
trade  were  the  leading  pursuits  of  the  North;  and 
these  interests,  it  was  feared,  would  suffer  from 
the  attempt  to  build  up  manufactures  by  a  protective 
tariff.  It  is  accordingly  a  well-known  fact,  which 
may  teach  all  to  entertain  opinions  on  public  ques- 
tions with  some  distrust  of  their  own  judgment, 
that  the  tariff  of  1816,  containing  the  minimum  duty 
on  coarse  cotton  fabrics,  the  corner-stone  of  the  pro- 
tective system,  was  supported  by  Mr.  Calhoun  and 
a  few  other  Southern  members,  and  carried  by  their 
influence  against  the  opposition  of  the  New  Eng- 


152  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

land  members  generally,  including  Mr.  Webster.  It 
has  been  stated,  that,  during  the  pendency  of  this 
law  before  Congress,  he  denied  the  constitution- 
ality of  the  tariff  for  protection.  This  statement  is 
inaccurate ;  although,  had  it  been  true,  it  would  have 
placed  him  only  in  the  sam&  relation  to  the  question 
with  Mr.  Calhoun  and  other  Southern  members,  who 
at  that  time  admitted  the  principle  of  protection,  but 
lived  to  reject  it  as  the  grossest  and  most  pernicious 
constitutional  heresy.  It  would  have  shown  only 
that,  in  a  long  political  career,  he  had,  on  the  first 
discussion  of  a  new  question,  expressed  an  opinion 
which,  in  the  lapse  of  time  and  under  a  change  of 
circumstances,  he  had  seen  occasion  to  alter.  This 
is  no  ground  of  just  reproach.  It  has  happened  to 
every  public  man  in  every  free  country,  who  has  been 
of  importance  enough  to  have  his  early  opinions 
remembered. 

At  a  later  period,  and  after  it  had  been  confidently 
stated,  and  satisfactorily  shown  by  Mr.  Madison, 
that  the  Federal  Convention  that  framed  the  Con- 
stitution intended,  under  the  provision  for  regulating 
commerce,  to  clothe  Congress  with  the  power  of 
laying  duties  for  the  protection  of  manufactures, 
and  after  Congress  had,  by  repeated  laws  passed 
against  the  wishes  of  the  navigating  and  strictly 
commercial  interests  practically  settled  this  consti- 
tutional question,  and  turned  a  vast  amount  of  the 
capital  of  the  country  into  the  channel  of  manufac- 
tures, Mr.  Webster  considered  a  moderate  degree 
of  protection  as  the  established  policy  of  the  United 
States  and  he  accordingly  supported  it.  It  is  un- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  153 

necessary  to  state,  that  this  course  was  pursued  with 
the  approbation  of  his  constituents,  and  to  the  mani- 
fest good  of  the  country.  No  change  took  place 
in  Mr.  Webster's  opinions  on  the  subject  of  protec- 
tion which  was  not  generally  shared  and  sanctioned 
by  the  intelligence  of  the  manufacturing  States. 

Mr.  Webster  took  an  active  and  efficient  part,  at 
the  first  session  of  the  Fourteenth  Congress,  in  the 
debates  on  the  charter  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  which  passed  Congress  in  April,  1816.  But 
the  great  service  rendered  by  him  to  the  currency 
of  the  country  in  the  Fourteenth  Congress  was  in 
procuring  the  adoption  of  the  specie  resolution,  in 
virtue  of  which,  from  and  after  the  2Oth  of  Febru- 
ary, 1817,  all  debts  due  to  the  treasury  were  required 
to  be  paid  in  the  legal  currency  of  the  country  (gold 
or  silver),  in  treasury  notes,  or  the  notes  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  or  in  notes  of  banks 
which  are  payable  and  paid  on  demand  in  the  same 
legal  currency.  This  resolution  passed  the  two 
houses,  and  was  approved  by  the  President  on  the 
3<Dth  of  April,  1816.  It  completely  accomplished  its 
object;  and  that  object  was  to  restore  to  a  sound 
basis  the  currency  of  the  country,  and  to  give  the 
people  a  uniform  circulating  medium.  Of  this  they 
were  destitute  at  the  close  of  the  war.  All  the  banks, 
except  those  of  the  New  England  States,  had  sus- 
pended specie  payments:  but  their  depreciated  bills 
were  permitted  by  general  consent,  and  within  cer- 
tain limits,  to  circulate  as  money.  They  were  re- 
ceived of  each  other  by  the  different  banks ;  they 
passed  from  hand  to  hand ;  and  even  the  public  rev- 


154  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

enue  was  collected  at  par  in  this  degraded  paper: 
The  rate  of  depreciation  was  different  in  different 
States,  and  with  different  banks  in  the  same  States, 
according  as  greater  or  less  advantage  had  been 
taken  of  the  suspension  of  the  specie  obligation. 

What  was  not  less  harassing  than  this  diversity 
was  the  uncertainty  everywhere  prevailing,  how  far 
the  reputed  rate  of  depreciation  in  any  particular 
case  might  represent  justly  the  real  condition  of  a 
bank  or  set  of  banks.  In  other  words,  men  were 
obliged  to  make  and  receive  payments  in  a  currency 
of  which,  at  the  time,  the  value  was  not  certainly 
known  to  them,  and  which  might  vary  as  it  was 
passing  through  their  hands.  The  enormous  injus- 
tice suffered  by  the  citizens  of  different  States,  in 
being  obliged  to  pay  their  dues  at  the  custom-houses 
in  as  many  different  currencies  as  there  were  States, 
varying  at  least  twenty-five  per  cent,  between  Boston 
and  Richmond,  need  not  be  pointed  out.  For  all 
these  mischiefs  the  resolution  of  Mr.  Webster  af- 
forded a  remedy  as  efficient  as  simple;  and  what 
chiefly  moves  our  astonishment  at  the  present  day  is, 
that  a  measure  of  this  kind,  demanded  by  the  first 
principles  of  finance,  overlooked  by  the  executive 
and  its  leading  friends  in  Congress,  should  be  left 
to  be  brought  forward  by  one  of  its  youngest  mem- 
bers, and  he  not  belonging  to  the  supporters  of  the 
administration. 

In  all  the  other  public  measures  brought  forward 
in  this  Congress  for  meeting  the  new  conditions  of 
the  country,  Mr.  Webster  bore  an  active  part,  but 
they  furnish  no  topic  requiring  illustration.  At  the 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  1 55 

close  of  the  first  session,  in  August,  1816,  he  re- 
moved his  domestic  and  professional  headquarters 
to  Boston.  He  had  established  friendly  relations 
here  at  an  early  period  of  life.  In  no  part  of  the 
Union  was  his  national  reputation  more  cordially 
recognized  than  in  the  metropolis  of  New  England. 
He  took  at  once  the  place  in  his  profession  which 
belonged  to  his  commanding  talent  and  legal  emi- 
nence, and  was  welcomed  into  every  circle  of  social 
life. 


CHAPTER  III 

Constitutional  Law. — Dartmouth  College  Case. — Case  Oi  Gib- 
bons and  Ogden  —  The  Case  of  Rhode  Island.— Mr.  Web- 
ster's Practice  in  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  and  the  State 
Courts. — Criminal  Cases. 

WITH  Mr.  Webster's  removal  to  Boston  com- 
menced a  period  of  five  or  six  years'  retirement 
from  active  political  life,  during  which  time,  with 
a  single  exception  which  will  be  hereafter  alluded 
to,  he  filled  no  public  office,  and  devoted  himself 
exclusively  to  the  duties  -of  his  profession.  It  was 
accordingly  within  this  period  that  his  reputation  as 
a  lawyer  was  fixed  and  established.  The  promise 
of  his  youth,  and  the  expectations  of  those  who  had 
known  him  as  a  student,  were  more  than  fulfilled. 
He  took  a  position  as  a  counsellor  and  an  advocate, 
above  which  no  one  has  ever  risen  in  the  country. 
A  large  share  of  the  best  business  of  New  England 
passed  into  his  hands ;  and  the  veterans  of  the  Boston 
bar  admitted  him  to  an  entire  equality  of  standing, 
repute,  and  influence. 

Besides  the  reputation  which  he  acquired  in  the  or- 
dinary routine  of  practice,  Mr.  Webster,  shortly  after 
his  removal  to  Boston,  took  the  lead  in  establishing 
what  might  almost  be  called  a  new  school  of  consti- 
tutional law.  It  fell  to  his  lot  to  perform  a  prom- 
inent part  in  unfolding  a  most  important  class  of 

'56 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  157 

constitutional  doctrines,  which,  either  because  occa- 
sion had  not  drawn  them  forth,  or  the  jurists  of  a 
former  period  had  failed  to  deduce  and  apply  them, 
had  not  yet  grown  into  a  system. 

In  the  months  of  June  and  December,  1816,  the 
legislature  of  New  Hampshire  passed  acts  altering 
the  charter  of  Dartmouth  College  (of  which  the 
name  was  changed  to  Dartmouth  University),  en- 
larging the  number  of  trustees,  and  generally  reor- 
ganizing the  corporation.  These  acts,  although 
passed  without  the  consent  and  against  the  protests 
of  the  Trustees  of  the  College,  went  into  operation. 
The  newly  created  body  took  possession  of  the  cor- 
porate property,  and  assumed  the  administration  of 
the  institution.  The  old  board  were  all  named  as 
members  of  the  new  corporation,  but  declined  act- 
ing as  such,  and  brought  an  action  against  the  treas- 
urer of  the  new  board  for  the  books  of  record,  the 
original  charter,  the  common  seal,  and  other  corpor- 
ate property  of  the  College. 

The  action  was  commenced  in  the  Court  of  Com- 
mon Pleas  for  Graf  ton  County,  in  February,  1817, 
and  carried  immediately  to  the  Superior  Court,  in 
May  of  the  same  year.  At  the  November  term  it 
was  decided  by  the  Superior  Court  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, in  an  opinion  delivered  by  Chief  Justice  Rich- 
ardson, that  the  acts  of  the  New  Hampshire  legisla- 
ture were  valid  and  constitutional. 

The  case  thus  decided  in  the  Superior  Court  of 
New  Hampshire  in  favor  of  the  validity  of  the  State 
laws,  was  carried  by  writ  of  error  to  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  where,  on  the  loth  of 


158  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

March,  1818,  it  came  on  for  argument  before  all 
the  judges,  Mr.  Webster  and  Mr.  (afterwards 
Judge)  Hopkinson  for  the  plaintiffs,  and  Mr.  J. 
Holmes  of  Maine  and  the  Attorney-General,  Wirt, 
for  the  defendants  in  error. 

It  devolved  upon  Mr.  Webster,  as  junior  counsel, 
to  open  the  case.  The  ground  was  broadly  taken, 
that  the  acts  in  question  were  not  only  against  com- 
mon right  and  the  constitution  of  New  Hampshire, 
but  also,  and  this  was  the  leading  principle,  against 
the  provision  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  which  forbids  the  individual  States  from  pass- 
ing laws  that  impair  the  obligation  of  contracts. 
Under  the  first  head,  the  entire  English  law  relative 
to  educational  foundations  was  unfolded  by  Mr. 
Webster,  and  it  was  shown  that  colleges,  unless 
otherwise  specifically  constituted  by  their  charters, 
were  private  eleemosynary  corporations,  over  whose 
property,  members,  and  franchises  the  crown  has 
no  control,  except  by  due  process  of  law,  for  acts 
inconsistent  with  their  charters.  The  whole  learn- 
ing of  the  subject  was  brought  to  bear  with  over- 
whelming weight  on  this  point. 

The  second  main  point  required  to  be  less  elabor- 
ately argued;  namely,  that  such  a  charter  is  a  con- 
tract which  it  is  not  competent  for  a  State  to  annul. 
The  argument  throughout  was  pursued  with  a  close- 
ness and  vigor  which  have  been  rarely  witnessed 
in  our  courts.  The  topics  were  beyond  the  usual 
range  of  forensic  investigation  in  this  country.  The 
constitutional  principles  sought  to  be  applied  were 
of  commanding  importance.  The  personal  connec- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  159 

tion  of  Mr.  Webster  with  Dartmouth  College  as  the 
place  of  his  education  gave  a  fervor  to  his  manner, 
which  added,  no  doubt,  to  the  effect  of  the  reason- 
ing. On  this  point  Mr.  Ticknor  expresses  himself 
as  follows: — 

"  Mr.  Webster's  argument  is  given  in  this  volume  [the  first 
collection  of  his  works],  that  is,  we  have  there  the  technical 
outline ;  the  dry  skeleton  of  it.  But  those  who  heard  him  when 
it  was  originally  delivered  still  wonder  how  such  dry  bones 
could  ever  have  lived  with  the  power  they  there  witnessed  and 
felt.  He  opened  his  cause,  as  he  always  does,  with  perfect  sim- 
plicity in  the  general  statement  of  its  facts,  and  then  went  on  to 
unfold  the  topics  of  his  argument  in  a  lucid  order,  which  made 
each  position  sustain  every  other.  The  logic  and  the  law  were 
rendered  irresistible.  But  as  he  advanced,  his  heart  warmed  to 
the  subject  and  the  occasion.  Thoughts  and  feelings  that  had 
grown  old  with  his  best  affections  rose  unbidden  to  his  lips. 
He  remembered  that  the  institution  he  was  defending  was  the 
one  where  his  own  youth  had  been  nurtured ;  and  the  moral 
tenderness  and  beauty  this  gave  to  the  grandeur  of  his  thoughts, 
the  sort  of  religious  sensibility  it  imparted  to  his  urgent  appeals 
and  demands  for  the  stern  fulfilment  of  what  law  and  justice 
required,  wrought  up  the  whole  audience  to  an  extraordinary 
state  of  excitement.  Many  betrayed  strong  agitation,  many 
were  dissolved  in  tears.  Prominent  among  them  was  that 
eminent  lawyer  and  statesman,  Robert  Goodloe  Harper,  who 
came  to  him  when  he  resumed  his  seat,  evincing  emotions  of 
the  highest  gratification.  When  he  ceased  to  speak,  there  was 
a  perceptible  interval  before  any  one  was  willing  to  break  the 
silence;  and  \vhen  that  vast  crowd  separated,  not  one  person  of 
the  whole  number  doubted  that  the  man  who  had  that  day 
so  moved,  astonished,  and  controlled  them,  had  vindicated  for 
himself  a  place  at  the  side  of  the  first  jurists  of  the  country."  * 

The  opinion  of  the  court,  unanimous,  with  the 
exception  of  Justice  Duvall,  was  pronounced  by  Chief 

*  "  American  Review,"  vol.  ix.  p.  434. 


160  AMERICAN  BIOGRAPHY 

Justice  Marshall  in  the  term  for  1819,  declaring  the 
acts  of  the  legislature  of  New  Hampshire  to  be  un- 
constitutional and  invalid,  and  reversing  the  opinion 
of  the  court  below.  By  this  opinion  the  law  of  the 
land  in  reference  to  collegiate  charters  was  firmly 
established.  Henceforward  our  colleges  and  uni- 
versities and  their  trustees,  unless  provision  to  the 
contrary  is  made  in  their  acts  of  incorporation,  stand 
upon  the  broad  basis  of  common  right  and  justice; 
holding  in  like  manner  as  individuals  their  property 
and  franchises  by  a  firm  legal  tenure,  and  not  subject 
to  control  or  interference  on  the  part  of  the  local 
legislatures  on  the  vague  ground  that  public  institu- 
tions are  at  the  mercy  of  the  government.  That 
such  is  the  recognized  law  of  the  land  is  owing  in 
no  small  degree  to  the  ability  with  which  the  Dart- 
mouth College  case  was  argued  by  Mr.  Webster. 
The  battle  fought  and  the  victory  gained  in  this  case 
were  fought  and  gained  for  every  college  and  uni- 
versity, for  every  academy  and  school,  in  the  United 
States,  endowed  with  property  or  possessed  of  chart- 
ered rights.  It  ought  to  be  mentioned,  to  the  credit 
of  the  State  of  New  Hampshire,  that  she  readily  ac- 
quiesced in  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  and  made  no  attempt  to  sustain 
her  recent  legislation. 

This  celebrated  cause,  argued  with  such  success 
before  the  highest  tribunal  in  the  country,  established 
Mr.  Webster's  position  in  the  profession.  It  placed 
him  at  once  with  Emmett  and  Pirikney  and  Wirt, 
in  the  front  rank  of  the  American  bar,  and,  though 
considerably  the  youngest  of  this  illustrious  group, 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  l6l 

on  an  equality  with  the  most  distinguished  of  them. 
He  was  henceforward  retained  in  almost  every  con- 
siderable cause  argued  at  Washington.  No  counsel 
in  the  United  States  has  probably  been  engaged  in 
a  larger  portion  of  the  business  brought  before  that 
tribunal.  While  Mr.  Webster  as  a  politician  and  a 
statesman  performed  an  amount  of  intellectual  labor 
sufficient  to  form  the  sole  occupation  of  an  active 
life,  there  is  no  doubt  that  his  arguments  to  the 
court  and  his  addresses  to  the  jury  in  important 
suits  at  law  would,  if  they  had  been  reported  like 
his  political  speeches,  have  filled  a  much  greater 
space. 

It  would  exceed  the  limits  of  this  sketch  to  allude 
in  detail  to  all  the  cases  argued  by  Mr.  Webster  in 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States;  still  less 
would  it  be  practicable  to  trace  him  through  his 
labors  in  the  State  courts.  We  can  barely  mention 
a  few  of  the  more  considerable  causes.  The  case  of 
Gibbons  and  Ogden,  in  1824,  is  one  of  great  celeb- 
rity. In  this  case  the  grant  by  the  State  of  New 
York  to  the  assignees  of  Fulton,  of  an  exclusive 
right  to  navigate  the  rivers,  harbors,  and  bays  of 
New  York  by  steam,  was  called  in  question,  and  was 
decided  to  be  unconstitutional,  after  having  been 
maintained  by  all  the  tribunals  of  that  great  State. 
The  decision  turned  upon  the  principle,  that  the 
grant  of  such  a  monopoly  of  the  right  to  enter  a 
portion  of  the  navigable  waters  of  the  Union  was 
an  encroachment,  by  the  State,  upon  the  power  "  to 
regulate  commerce," — a  power  reserved  by  the  Con- 
stitution to  Congress,  and  in  its  nature  exclusive. 

A.  B.,  VOL.  VI.  —  II 


l62  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

The  decision  of  the  court  was  against  the  monopoly. 
Few  cases  in  the  annals  of  federal  jurisprudence  are 
of  equal  importance;  none,  perhaps,  was  ever  ar- 
gued with  greater  ability.  In  the  course  of  his  dis- 
cussion, Mr.  Webster  said,  with  great  felicity  of 
illustration,  that,  by  the  establishment  of  the  Con- 
stitution, the  commerce  of  this  whole  country  had 
become  a  unit,  a  form  of  expression  used  with  ap- 
probation by  Chief  Justice  Marshall  in  delivering 
the  opinion  of  the  court. 

A  very  distinguished  compliment  was  paid  to  Mr. 
Webster's  argument  in  this  case,  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury after  its  delivery,  by  Mr.  Justice  Wayne  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  who  in  a  pub- 
lic address  of  welcome  to  Savannah,  Ga.,  said  to 
Mr.  Webster: — 


"  From  one  of  your  constitutional  suggestions,  every  man  in 
the  land  has  been  more  or  less  benefited.  We  allude  to  it  with 
the  greater  pleasure,  because  it  was  in  a  controversy  begun  by  a 
Georgian  in  behalf  of  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  citizen. 
When  the  late  Mr.  Thomas  Gibbons  determined  to  put  to 
hazard  a  large  part  of  his  fortune  in  testing  the  constitutionality 
of  the  laws  of  New  York  limiting  the  navigation  of  the  waters 
of  that  State  to  steamers  belonging  to  a  company,  his  own  in- 
terest was  not  so  much  concerned  as  the  right  of  every  citizen 
to  use  a  coasting  license  upon  the  waters  of  the  United  States, 
in  whatever  way  their  vessels  might  be  propelled.  It  was  a 
sound  view  of  the  law,  but  not  broad  enough  for  the  occasion. 
It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  case  would  have  been  decided  upon 
it,  if  you  had  not  insisted  that  it  should  be  put  upon  the  broader 
constitutional  ground  of  commerce  and  navigation.  The  court 
felt  the  application  and  force  of  your  reasoning,  and  it  made  a 
decision  releasing  every  creek,  and  river,  lake,  bay,  and  har- 
bor in  our  country  from  the  interference  of  monopolies,  which 
had  already  provoked  unfriendly  legislation  between  some  of  the 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  163 

States,  and  which  would  have  been  as  little  favorable  to  the 
interest  of  Fulton,  as  they  were  unworthy  his  genius." 

The  case  of  Ogden  and  Saunders,  in  1827, 
brought  in  question  the  right  of  a  State  to  pass  an 
insolvent  law.  It  was  of  course  a  case  of  high  con- 
stitutional law,  belonging  to  the  same  general  class 
with  those  just  mentioned,  and  relating  to  the  limit 
of  the  powers  of  the  several  States,  in  reference  to 
matters  confided  by  the  Constkution  to  the  General 
Government.  In  his  argument  in  this  case,  Mr.  Web- 
ster maintained  the  entire  unconstitutionality  of 
State  bankrupt  laws.  The  court  was  divided  in 
opinion,  but  a  majority  of  the  judges  held,  that,  al- 
though it  was  not  competent  to  a  State  to  pass  a  law 
discharging  a  debtor  from  the  obligation  of  pay- 
ment, they  might  pass  a  law  to  discharge  him  from 
imprisonment  on  personal  execution.  The  Chief 
Justice  and  Judge  Story  were  the  minority  of  the 
court,  and  the  opinion  of  the  Chief  Justice  sustained 
the  principle  of  Mr.  Webster's  argument,  which  is, 
in  fact,  usually  regarded  as  not  falling  below  his 
most  successful  forensic  efforts. 

In  the  month  of  January,  1848,  the  great  Rhode 
Island  case  was  brought  before  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  and  argued  by  Mr.  Webster 
for  the  chartered  government  of  the  State,  and 
against  the  insurrectionary  government,  to  which 
an  abortive  attempt  had  been  made  to  give  the  form 
of  a  constitution,  by  a  pretended  act  of  the  popular 
will.  The  true  principles  of  popular  and  constitu- 
tional government  are  explored  with  unsurpassed 
sagacity  in  this  argument. 


164  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

A  large  portion  of  the  causes  argued  by  Mr.  Web- 
ster belong  to  the  province  of  constitutional  law, 
and  have  their  origin  in  that  partition  of  powers 
which  exists  between  the  State  governments  and  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  each  clothed  with 
sovereignty  in  its  appropriate  sphere,  each  subject 
to  limitations  resulting  from  its  relations  to  the 
other,  each  possessing  its  legislative  bodies,  its  judi- 
cial tribunals,  its  executive  authorities,  and  conse- 
quently armed  with  the  means  of  asserting  its  rights, 
and  both  combined  into  one  great  political  system. 
In  such  a  system  it  cannot  but  happen  that  ques- 
tions of  conflicting  jurisdiction  should  arise,  and 
no  small  portion  of  Mr.  Webster's  forensic  life 
was  devoted  to  their  investigation.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  state  that  they  are  questions  of  an  ele- 
vated character.  They  often  involve  the  validity  of 
the  legislative  acts  and  judicial  decisions  of  govern- 
ments substantially  independent,  as  they  may  in  fact 
the  constitutionality  of  the  acts  of  Congress  itself. 
No  court  in  England  will  allow  any  thing,  not  even 
a  treaty  with  a  foreign  government,  or  the  most  un- 
doubted principles  of  the  law  of  nations,  to  be 
pleaded  against  an  act  of  Parliament.  The  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  entertains  the  question 
not  only  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  acts  of  the 
legislatures  of  States  possessing  most  of  the  attri- 
butes of  sovereignty,  but  also  of  the  constitutionality 
of  the  acts  of  the  national  legislature,  which  pos- 
sesses those  attributes  of  sovereignty  which  are  de- 
nied to  the  States.  These  circumstances  give  great 
dignity  to  its  deliberations,  and  tend  materially  to 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  165 

elevate  the  character  of  a  constitutional  lawyer  in 
the  United  States.  Professional  training  in  Eng- 
land has  not  been  deemed  the  best  school  of  states- 
manship ;  but  it  will  be  readily  perceived,  that  in  this 
country  a  great  class  of  questions,  and  those  of  the 
highest  importance,  belong  alike  to  the  senate  and 
the  court.  Every  one  must  feel  that,  in  the  case  of 
Mr.  Webster,  the  lawyer  and  the  statesman  have 
contributed  materially  to  form  each  other. 

Before  quite  quitting  this  subject,  it  may  be  proper 
to  allude  to  Mr.  Webster's  professional  labors  of  an- 
other class,  in  the  ordinary  State  tribunals.  Em- 
ployed as  counsel  in  all  the  most  important  cases 
during  a  long  professional  life,  it  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  say,  that  his  investigations  extended  to  every 
department  of  the  law,  and  that  his  speeches  to  the 
jury  and  arguments  to  the  court  evinced  a  mastery 
of  the  learning  and  a  control  of  the  logic  belonging 
to  it,  which  are  in  most  cases  to  be  attained  only  by 
the  exclusive  study  and  practice  of  a  life.  The  jurist 
and  the  advocate  were  so  mingled  in  Mr.  Webster's 
professional  character  that  it  is  not  easy  to  say  which 
predominated.  His  fervid  spirit  and  glowing  imagi- 
nation placed  at  his  control  all  the  resource  of  an 
overwhelming  rhetoric,  and  made  him  all-powerful 
with  a  jury ;  while  the  ablest  court  was  guided  by  his 
severe  logic,  and  instructed  by  the  choice  which  he 
laid  before  them  of  the  most  appropriate  learning 
of  the  cases  which  he  argued.  It  happens,  unfortu- 
nately, that  forensic  efforts  of  this  kind  are  rarely 
reported  at  length.  A  brief  sketch  of  an  important 
law  argument  finds  a  place  in  the  history  of  the  case, 


1 66  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

but  distinguished  counsel  rarely  have  time  or  be- 
stow the  labor  required  to  reproduce  in  writing  an 
elaborate  address  either  to  court  or  jury.  There 
is  probably  no  species  of  intellectual  labor  of  the 
highest  order  which  perishes  for  want  of  a  contem- 
porary record  to  the  same  extent  as  that  which  is 
daily  exerted  in  the  courts  of  law. 

Two  speeches  addressed  to  the  jury  by  Mr. 
Webster  in  criminal  trials  have  remained  famous. 
One  was  delivered  in  the  case  of  Goodridge, 
and  in  defence  of  the  persons  whom  he  accused 
of  having  robbed  him  on  the  highway.  This 
cause  was  tried  in  1817,  shortly  after  the  estab- 
lishment of  Mr.  Webster  at  Boston.  Rarely  has 
a  case,  in  itself  of  no  greater  importance,  pro- 
duced a  stronger  impression  of  the  ability  of  the 
counsel.  The  cross-examination  of  Goodridge,  who 
pretended  to  have  been  robbed,  and  who  had  pre- 
viously been  considered  a  person  of  some  degree  of 
respectability,  is  still  remembered  at  the  bar  of  Mas- 
sachusetts as  terrific  beyond  example,  and  the  speech 
to  the  jury  in  which  his  artfully  contrived  tale  was 
stripped  of  its  disguises  may  be  studied  as  a  model 
of  this  species  of  exposition. 

Mr.  Webster's  speech  to  the  jury  in  the  memor- 
able murder  case  of  John  F.  Knapp  is  of  a  higher 
interest.  The  great  importance  of  this  case,  as  well 
on  account  of  the  legal  principles  involved,  as  of  the 
depth  of  the  tragedy  in  real  life  with  which  it  was 
connected,  gave  it  a  painful  celebrity.  The  record  of 
the  causes  celebres  of  no  country  or  age  will  furnish 
either  a  more  thrilling  narrative,  or  a  forensic  effort 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  1 67 

of  greater  ability.  A  passage  on  the  power  of  con- 
science will  arrest  the  attention  of  the  reader.  There 
is  nothing  in  our  language  superior  to  it.  It  was 
unquestionably  owing  to  the  legal  skill  and  moral 
courage  with  which  the  case  was  conducted  by  Mr. 
Webster,  that  one  of  the  foulest  crimes  ever  com- 
mitted was  brought  to  condign  punishment ;  and  the 
nicest  refinements  of  the  law  of  evidence  were  made 
the  means  of  working  out  the  most  important  prac- 
tical results.  But  it  is  time  to  return  to  the  chrono- 
logical series  of  events. 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Convention  to  revise  the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts. — 
Centennial  Anniversary  at  Plymouth,  December  22d,  1820. — 
Bunker  Hill  Monument. — Addresses. — Simultaneous  Decease 
of  Adams  and  Jefferson. — Eulogy  by  Mr.  Webster. — Laying 
of  the  Corner-Stone  of  the  New  Wing  of  the  Capitol. — Re- 
marks on  the  Patriotic  Discourses  of  Mr.  Webster. 

IN  1820,  on  the  separation  of  Maine  from  Massa- 
chusetts, a  convention  became  necessary  in  the  latter 
State  to  readjust  the  Senate;  and  the  occasion  was 
deemed  a  favorable  one  for  a  general  revision  of  the 
Constitution.  The  various  towns  in  the  Common- 
wealth were  authorized  by  law  to  choose  as  many 
delegates  as  they  were  entitled  to  elect  members  to 
the  House  of  Representatives ;  and  a  body  was  con- 
stituted containing  much  of  the  talent,  political  ex- 
perience, and  weight  of  character  of  the  State.  Mr. 
Webster  was  chosen  one  of  the  delegates  from 
Boston;  and,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  days'  ser- 
vice, two  or  three  years  afterward,  in  the  Massachu- 
setts House  of  Representatives,*  this  is  the  only  oc- 

*  Mr.  Webster  makes  the  following  playful  allusion  to  this 
circumstance  in  a  speech  at  a  public  dinner  in  Syracuse  (New 
York): 

"  It  has  so  happened  that  all  the  public  services  which  I  have 
rendered  in  the  world,  in  my  day  and  generation,  have  been  con- 
nected with  the  General  Government.  I  think  I  ought  to  make 
an  exception.  I  was  ten  days  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts 
legislature,  and  I  turned  my  thoughts  to  the  search  for  some 

168 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  169 

casion  on  which  he  ever  filled  any  political  office 
under  the  State  government  either  of  Massachu- 
setts or  New  Hampshire. 

The  convention  of  1820  was  no  doubt  as  respect- 
able a  political  body  as  ever  assembled  in  Massachu- 
setts ;  and  it  is  no  more  than  justice  to  Mr.  Webster 
to  say,  that  although  he  had  been  but  a  few  years 
a  citizen  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  was  personally 
a  stranger  to  most  of  his  associates,  he  was  among 
the  most  efficient  members  of  the  body.  He  was 
named  chairman  of  the  committee  to  whom  the  im- 
portant subject  of  oaths  and  qualifications  for  office 
was  referred,  and  of  the  special  committee  on  that 
chapter  of  the  constitution  which  relates  to  the 
"  University  of  Cambridge."  Besides  taking  a  lead- 
ing part  in  the  discussion  of  most  of  the  important 
subjects  which  were  agitated  in  the  convention,  he 
was  the  authority  most  deferred  to  on  questions  of 
order,  and  in  that  way  exercised  a  steady  and  power- 
ful influence  over  the  general  course  of  its  pro- 
ceedings. 

In  the  speech  on  the  basis  of  the  Senate.  Mr.  Web- 
ster defended  the  principle,  which  was  incorporated 
into  the  original  constitution,  and  is  recognized  by 
the  liberal  writers  of  greatest  authority  on  govern- 
ment, that  due  regard  should  be  had  to  property  in 
establishing  a  basis  of  representation.  He  showed 

good  object  in  which  I  could  be  useful  in  that  position;  and, 
after  much  reflection,  I  introduced  a  bill  which,  with  the  gen- 
eral consent  of  both  houses  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature, 
passed  into  a  law,  and  is  now  a  law  of  the  State,  which  enacts 
that  no  man  in  the  State  shall  catch  trout  in  any  other  manner 
than  in  the  old  way,  with  an  ordinary  hook  and  line," 


1 70  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

the  connection  between  the  security  of  republican 
liberty  and  this  principle.  He  first  called  attention 
in  this  country  to  the  fact,  that  this  important  prin- 
ciple was  originally  developed  in  Harrington's 
"  Oceana,"  a  work  much  studied  by  our  Revolution- 
ary fathers.  The  practical  consequence  which  Mr. 
Webster  deduced  from  the  principle  was,  that  consti- 
tutional and  legal  provision  ought  to  be  made  to  pro- 
duce the  utmost  possible  diffusion  and  equality  of 
property. 

While  the  Massachusetts  convention  was  in  ses- 
sion, Mr.  Webster  appeared  before  the  public  in 
another  department  of  intellectual  effort,  and  with 
the  most  distinguished  success.  In  1820,  Mr.  Web- 
ster was  invited  by  the  Pilgrim  Society  at  Plymouth 
to  deliver  a  discourse  on  the  great  anniversary  of 
New  England,  the  ever  memorable  22d  of  Decem- 
ber. Several  circumstances  contributed  on  this  oc- 
casion to  the  interest  of  the  day.  The  peaceful 
surrender  by  Massachusetts  of  a  portion  of  her 
territory,  greatly  exceeding  in  magnitude  that 
which  she  retained,  in  order  to  form  the  new  State 
of  Maine,  was  a  pleasing  exemplification  of  that 
prosperous  multiplication  of  independent  common- 
wealths within  the  limits  of  the  Union,  which  forms 
one  of  the  most  distinctive  features  in  our  history. 
It  was  as  much  an  alienation  of  territory  from  the 
local  jurisdiction  of  Massachusetts,  as  if  it  had  been 
ceded  to  Great  Britain,  and  yet  the  alienation  was 
cordially  made.  At  this  very  time  a  controversy 
existed  between  the  United  States  and  England, 
relative  to  the  conflicting  title  of  the  two  govern- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  1?I 

ments  to  a  very  small  portion,  and  that  the  least 
valuable  part,  of  the  same  territory,  which,  after 
the  aggravations  and  irritations  of  forty  years  of 
controversy,  was  in  1842  adjusted  by  Mr.  Webster 
and  Lord  Ashburton,  at  a  moment  when  war  seemed 
all  but  inevitable.  In  any  other  country  or  age  of  the 
world,  Maine  could  have  been  severed  from  Massa- 
chusetts only  by  a  bloody  revolution.  Their  amicable 
separation  by  mutual  consent,  although  neither  the 
first  nor  the  second  similar  event  in  the  United 
States,  was  still  an  occurrence  which  carried  back 
the  reflections  of  thoughtful  men  to  the  cradle  of 
New  England. 

These  reflections  gathered  interest  from  the  con- 
vention then  in  session.  Several  of  the  topics  which 
presented  themselves  to  Mr.  Webster's  mind,  and 
were  discussed  by  him  at  Plymouth,  had  entered 
into  the  debates  of  the  convention  a  few  days  before. 
Still  more,  the  close  of  the  second  century  from 
the  landing  of  the  Fathers,  with  all  its  migfaty 
series  of  events  in  the  social,  political,  and  moral 
world,  gave  the  highest  interest  to  the  occasion.  Six 
New  England  generations  were  to  pass  in  review.  It 
was  an  anniversary  which  could  be  celebrated  no- 
where else  as  it  could  be  at  Plymouth.  It  was  such 
an  anniversary,  with  its  store  of  traditions,  com- 
parisons, and  anticipations,  as  none  then  living  could 
witness  again. 

The  discourse  delivered  by  him  in  pursuance  of 
their  invitation  was  in  some  respects  the  most  re- 
markable of  his  performances.  The  felicity  and 
spirit  with  which  its  descriptive  portions  are  exe- 


1 72  AMERICAN  BIOGRAPHY 

cuted ;  the  affecting  tribute  which  it  pays  to  the  mem- 
ory of  the  Pilgrims;  the  moving  picture  of  their 
sufferings  on  both  sides  of  the  water;  the  masterly 
exposition  and  analysis  of  those  institutions  to  which 
the  prosperity  of  New  England  under  Providence 
is  owing;  the  eloquent  inculcation  of  those  great 
principles  of  republicanism  on  which  our  American 
commonwealths  are  founded;  the  instructive  survey 
of  the  past,  the  sublime  anticipations  of  the  future 
of  America, — have  long  since  given  this  discourse  a 
classical  celebrity.  Several  of  its  soul-stirring  pas- 
sages have  become  as  household  words  throughout 
the  country.  They  are  among  the  most  favorite 
of  the  extracts  contained  in  the  school-books.  An 
entire  generation  of  young  men  have  derived  from 
this  noble  performance  some  of  their  first  lessons 
in  the  true  principles  of  American  republicanism. 

In  the  course  of  a  few  years,  when  the  corner- 
stone of  the  Bunker  Hill  Monument  was  to  be  laid. 
on  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  battle,  the  general 
expectation  again  pointed  to  Mr.  Webster  ar  the 
orator  of  the  day.  This,  too,  was  a  great  national 
and  patriotic  anniversary.  For  the  first  time,  and 
after  the  lapse  of  a  half-century,  the  commencement 
of  the  war  of  the  American  Revolution  was  to  be 
publicly  celebrated  under  novel,  significant,  and 
highly  affecting  circumstances.  Fifty  years  had 
extinguished  all  the  unkindly  associations  of  the  day, 
and  raised  it  from  the  narrow  sphere  of  local  history 
to  a  high  place  in  the  annals  of  the  world.  A  great 
confederacy  had  sprung  from  the  blood  of  Bunker 
Hill.  This  was  too  important  an  event  in  the  history 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  1 73 

of  the  world  to  be  surrendered  to  hostile  and  party 
feeling.  No  friend  of  representative  government  in 
England  had  reason  to  deplore  the  foundation  of  the 
American  republics.  No  one  can  doubt  that  the  de- 
velopment of  the  representative  principle  in  this 
country  has  contributed  greatly  to  promote  the  cause 
of  Parliamentary  reform  in  Great  Britain.  Other 
considerations  gave  great  interest  to  the  festival  of 
the  1 7th  of  June,  1825.  Fifty  years  of  national 
life,  fortune,  and  experience,  not  exhibiting  in  their 
detail  an  unvarying  series  of  prosperity  (for  it  was 
fifty  years  in  the  history,  not  of  angels,  but  of  men), 
but  assuredly  not  surpassed  in  the  grand  aggregate 
by  any  half-century  in  the  annals  of  the  world,  were 
now  brought  to  a  close.  Vast  as  the  contrast  was  in 
the  condition  of  the  country  at  the  beginning  and 
close  of  the  period,  there  were  still  living  venerable 
men  who  had  acted  prominent  and  efficient  parts 
in  the  opening  scenes  of  the  drama.  Men  who  had 
shared  the  perils  of  1775  shared  the  triumph  of  the 
jubilee.  More  than  a  hundred  of  the  heroes  of  the 
battle  were  among  the  joyous  participators  in  this 
great  festival.  Not  the  least  affecting  incident  of 
the  celebration  was  the  presence  of  Lafayette,  who 
had  hastened  from  his  more  than  royal  progress 
through  the  Union  to  take  a  part  in  the  ceremonial. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  say,  that  on  such  an  occasion, 
with  all  these  circumstances  addressed  to  the  im- 
aginations and  the  thoughts  of  men,  in  the  presence 
of  a  vast  multitude  of  the  intelligent  population  of 
Massachusetts  and  the  other  New  England  States, 
with  no  inconsiderable  attendance  of  kindred  and 


174  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

descendants  from  every  part  of  the  Union,  an  ad- 
dress from  such  an  orator  as  Mr.  Webster,  on  such 
a  platform,  on  such  a  theme,  in  the  flower  of  his  age 
and  the  maturity  of  his  faculties,  discoursing  upon 
an  occasion  of  transcendent  interest,  and  kindling 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  the  day  and  the  spot,  may 
well  be  regarded  as  an  intellectual  treat  of  the  high- 
est order. 

Scarcely  inferior  in  interest  was  the  anniversary 
celebration,  when  the  Bunker  Hill  Monument  was 
finally  completed,  in  1843,  and  Mr.  Webster  again 
censented  to  address  the  immense  multitude  which 
the  ceremonial  could  not  fail  to  bring  together.  The 
great  work  was  now  finished;  and  the  most  impor- 
tant event  in  the  history  of  New  England  was  hence- 
forward commemorated  by  a  monument  destined,  in 
all  human  probability,  to  last  as  long  as  any  work 
erected  by  the  hands  of  man.  The  thrill  of  admira- 
tion which  ran  through  the  assembled  thousands, 
when,  at  the  commencement  of  his  discourse  on  that 
occasion,  Mr.  Webster  apostrophized  the  monument 
itself  as  the  mute  orator  of  the  day,  has  been  spoken 
of  by  those  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  present 
as  an  emotion  beyond  the  power  of  language  to  de- 
scribe. The  gesture,  the  look,  the  tone  of  the 
speaker,  as  he  turned  to  the  majestic  shaft,  seemed 
to  invest  it  with  a  mysterious  life;  and  men  held 
their  breath  as  if  a  solemn  voice  was  about  to  come 
down  from  its  towering  summit. 

On  the  4th  of  July,  1826,  occurred  the  extraor- 
dinary coincidence  of  the  deaths  of  Adams  and  Jef- 
ferson, within  a  few  hours  of  each  other,  on  the 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  175 

fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence ;  an  event  with  which  they  were  both  so  closely 
connected,  as  members  of  the  committee  by  which 
the  ever-memorable  state  paper  was  prepared  and 
brought  into  the  Continental  Congress.  The  public 
mind  was  already  predisposed  for  patriotic  emotions 
and  sentiments  of  every  kind  by  many  conspiring 
causes.  The  recency  of  the  Revolutionary  contest, 
sufficiently  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  many  of  those 
engaged  in  it  were  still  alive  and  had  been  the  sub- 
jects of  liberal  provision  by  Congress ;  the  complete, 
though  temporary,  fusion  of  parties,  producing  for 
a  few  years  a  political  lull,  never  witnessed  to  the 
same  extent  before  or  since;  the  close  of  the  half- 
century  from  the  commencement  of  the  Revolution- 
ary War,  and  the  commemoration  of  its  early  con- 
flicts on  many  of  the  spots  where  they  occurred ;  the 
foundation  of  the  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  and  of  a 
similar  work  on  a  smaller  scale  at  Concord ;  the  visit 
of  Lafayette ;  abroad,  the  varying  scenes  of  the  Greek 
revolution  and  the  popular  movement  in  many  other 
parts  of  Europe, — united  in  exciting  the  public  mind 
in  this  country.  They  kindled  to  new  fervor  the 
susceptible  and  impulsive  American  temperament. 
The  simultaneous  decease  of  the  illustrious  patri- 
archs of  the  Revolution,  under  these  circumstances 
of  coincidence,  fell  upon  a  community  already  pre- 
pared to  be  deeply  affected.  It  touched  a  tender 
chord,  which  vibrated  from  one  end  of  the  Union 
to  the  other. 

It  has,  perhaps,  never  been   the  fortune  of  an 
orator  to  treat  a  subject  in  all  respects  so  extraordi- 


1 76  AMERICAN  BIOGRAPHY 

nary  as  that  which  called  forth  the  eulogy  on  Adams 
and  Jefferson;  a  subject  which  the  characters  com- 
memorated, the  field  of  action,  the  magnitude  of  the 
events,  and  the  peculiar  personal  relations,  were 
so  important  and  unusual.  Certainly  it  is  not  ex- 
travagant to  add,  that  no  similar  effort  of  oratory 
was  ever  more  completely  successful  than  Mr. 
Webster's  address  at  the  funeral  services  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall.  The  speech  ascribed  to  John  Adams 
in  the  Continental  Congress,  on  the  subject  of 
declaring  the  independence  of  the  Colonies,— 
a  speech  of  which  the  topics  of  course  present 
themselves  on  the  most  superficial  consideration 
what  was  actually  said  are  supplied  by  the  letters 
and  diaries  of  Mr.  Adams, — is  not  excelled  by  any 
thing  of  the  kind  in  our  language.  Few  things  have 
taken  so  strong  a  hold  of  the  public  mind.  It 
thrills  and  delights  alike  the  student  of  history,  who 
recognizes  it  at  once  as  the  creation  of  the  orator, 
and  the  common  reader,  who  takes  it  to  be  the  com- 
position, not  of  Mr.  Webster,  but  of  Mr.  Adams. 
From  the  time  the  eulogy  was  delivered,  the  inquiry 
was  often  made  and  repeated,  sometimes  even  in 
letters  addressed  to  Mr.  Webster  himself,  whether 
this  exquisite  appeal  was  his  or  Mr.  Adams's. 

These  discourses,  with  the  exception  of  the  second 
Bunker  Hill  Address,  were  delivered  within  about 
five  years  of  each  other ;  the  first  on  the  22d  of  De- 
cember, 1820,  the  last  on  the  2d  of  August,  1826. 
In  later  years  he  again  addressed  his  fellow-citizens 
on  several  occasions  not  immediately  connected  with 
senatorial  or  professional  duty,  and  with  the  power 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  1 77 

and  felicity  which  mark  his  earlier  efforts.  The 
most  remarkable  of  these  recent  addresses  is  his 
speech  delivered  at  Washington  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1851,  at  the  ceremonial  of  the  laying  of  the  corner- 
stone of  the  addition  to  the  Capitol.  This  ceremo- 
nial, itself  of  no  ordinary  interest,  and  the  aspect  of 
public  affairs  under  which  it  was  performed,  gave 
a  peculiar  fervor  and  solemnity  to  Mr.  Webster's 
treatment  of  the  subject. 

This  great  oration,  perhaps  not  premeditated  so 
carefully,  as  far  as  the  mere  language  is  concerned, 
as  those  of  an  earlier  date  with  which  we  have 
classed  it,  is  not  inferior  to  either  of  them  in  the 
essentials  of  patriotic  eloquence.  It  belongs,  in 
common  with  them,  to  a  species  of  oratory  neither 
forensic  nor  parliamentary  nor  academical;  and 
which  might  perhaps  conveniently  enough  be  de- 
scribed by  the  epithet  which  we  have  just  applied 
to  it, — the  patriotic.  These  addresses  are  strongly 
discriminated  from  the  forensic  and  the  parliamen- 
tary class  of  speeches,  in  being  from  the  nature  of 
the  case  more  elaborately  prepared.  The  public 
taste  in  a  highly  cultivated  community  would  not 
admit,  in  a  performance  of  this  kind,  those  marks 
of  extemporaneous  execution,  which  it  not  only  tol- 
erates, but  admires,  in  the  unpremeditated  efforts  of 
the  senate  and  the  bar.  The  latter  shines  to  greatest 
advantage  in  happy  impromptu  strokes,  whether  of 
illustration  or  argument;  the  former  admits,  and 
therefore  demands,  the  graceful  finish  of  a  mature 
preparation. 

It  is  not,  indeed,  to  be  supposed,  that  an  orator 

A.  B.,  VOL.  VI. —  12 


178  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

like  Mr.  Webster  is  slavishly  tied  down,  on  any  occa- 
sion, to  his  manuscript  notes,  or  to  a  memoriter  repe- 
tition of  their  contents.  It  may  be  presumed  that 
in  many  cases  the  noblest  and  the  boldest  flights,  the 
last  and  warmest  tints  thrown  upon  the  canvas,  in 
discourses  of  this  kind,  were  the  unpremeditated  in- 
spiration of  the  moment  of  delivery.  The  opposite 
view  would  be  absurd,  because  it  would  imply  that 
the  mind,  under  the  high  excitement  of  delivery,  was 
less  fertile  and  creative  than  in  the  repose  of  the 
closet.  A  speaker  could  not,  if  he  attempted  it,  anti- 
cipate in  his  study  the  earnestness  and  fervor  of 
spirit  induced  by  actual  contact  with  the  audience; 
he  could  not  by  any  possibility  forestall  the  sympa- 
thetic influence  upon  his  imagination  and  intellect 
of  the  listening  and  applauding  throng.  However 
severe  the  method  required  by  the  nature  of  the  occa- 
sion, or  dictated  by  his  own  taste,  a  speaker  like  Mr. 
Webster  will  not  often  confine  himself  "  to  pouring 
out  fervors  a  week  old." 

The  orator  who  would  do  justice  to  a  great  theme 
or  a  great  occasion  must  thoroughly  study  and 
understand  the  subject;  he  must  accurately,  and  if 
possible  minutely,  digest  in  writing  beforehand  the 
substance,  and  even  the  form,  of  his  address ;  other- 
wise, though  he  may  speak  ably,  he  will  be  apt  not  to 
make  in  all  respects  an  able  speech.  He  must  en- 
tirely possess  himself  beforehand  of  the  main  things 
which  he  wishes  to  say,  and  then  throw  himself  upon 
the  excitement  of  the  moment  and  the  sympathy  of 
the  audience.  In  those  portions  of  his  discourse 
which  are  didactic  or  narrative,  he  will  not  be  likely 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  179 

to  wander,  in  any  direction,  far  from  his  notes;  al- 
though even  in  those  portions  new  facts,  illustra- 
tions, and  suggestions  will  be  apt  to  spring  up  before 
him  as  he  proceeds.  But  when  the  topic  rises,  when 
the  mind  kindles  from  within,  and  the  strain  becomes 
loftier,  or  bolder,  or  more  pathetic,  when  the  sacred 
fountain  of  tears  is  ready  to  overflow,  and  audience 
and  speaker  are  moved  by  one  kindred  sympathetic 
passion,  then  the  thick-coming  fancies  cannot  be  kept 
down,  the  storehouse  of  the  memory  is  unlocked, 
images  start  up  from  the  slumber  of  years,  and  all 
that  the  orator  has  seen,  read,  heard,  or  felt  returns 
in  distinct  shape  and  vivid  colors.  The  cold  and 
premeditated  text  will  no  longer  suffice  for  the  glow- 
ing thought.  The  stately,  balanced  phrase  gives 
place  to  some  abrupt,  graphic  expression,  that  rushes 
unbidden  to  his  lips.  The  unforeseen  incident  or 
locality  furnishes  an  apt  and  speaking  image;  and 
the  discourse  instinctively  transposes  itself  into  a 
higher  key. 

Many  illustrations  of  these  remarks  may  be  found 
in  Mr.  Webster's  speeches.  We  may  refer  particular- 
ly to  the  address  to  the  survivors  of  the  Revolution 
and  the  apostrophe  to  Warren  in  the  first  discourse 
on  Bunker  Hill.  These  were  topics  too  obvious 
and  essential,  in  an  address  on  laying  the  corner- 
stone of  the  monument,  to  have  been  omitted  in  the 
orator's  notes  prepared  beforehand.  But  no  one  will 
think  that  the  entire  apostrophe  to  Warren,  as  it 
stands  in  the  reported  speech,  was  elaborated  in  the 
closet  and  committed  to  memory.  After  speaking 
of  the  hero  he  breaks  into  an  impassioned  address  to 


180  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

him,  and  passing,  after  a  few  intervening  clauses, 
from  the  third  person  to  the  second,  he  exclaims, 
"  How  shall  I  struggle  with  the  emotions  that  stifle 
the  utterance  of  thy  name!  Our  poor  work  may 
perish,  but  thine  shall  endure !  This  monument  may 
moulder  away;  the  solid  ground  it  rests  upon  may 
sink  down  to  a  level  with  the  sea;  but  thy  memory 
shall  not  fail!" 


CHAPTER  V 

Election  to  Congress  from  Boston. — The  Eighteenth  Congress. 
— Resolution  and  Speech  in  favor  of  the  Greeks. — The  Tariff 
Law  of  1824. — Law  for  the  Punishment  of  Crimes  against 
the  United  States. — The  Election  of  Mr.  Adams  as  Presi- 
dent.— Meeting  of  the  Nineteenth  Congress. — Congress  of 
Panama. — Election  as  U.  S.  Senator. — Revision  of  the  Tariff 
Law. 

IN  the  autumn  of  1822,  Mr.  Webster  consented 
to  be  a  candidate  for  Congress  for  the  city  (then 
town)  of  Boston,  and  was  chosen  by  a  very  large 
majority  over  his  opponent,  Mr.  Jesse  Putnam.  The 
former  party  distinctions,  as  has  been  already  ob- 
served, had  nearly  lost  their  significance  in  Massa- 
chusetts, as  in  some  other  parts  of  the  country.  As 
a  necessary,  or  at  least  a  natural  consequence  of  this 
state  of  things,  four  candidates  had  already  been 
brought  forward  for  the  Presidential  election  of 
November,  1824;  namely,  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams 
of  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Clay  of  Kentucky,  General 
Jackson  of  Tennessee,  and  Mr.  Crawford  of 
Georgia.  Mr.  Calhoun  of  South  Carolina  and  Mr. 
Lowndes  of  the  same  State  had  also  both  been  nom- 
inated by  their  friends  at  an  early  period  of  the  can- 
vass, but  the  latter  was  soon  removed  by  death,  and 
Mr.  Calhoun  withdrew  his  pretensions  in  favor  of 
General  Jackson.  All  the  candidates  named  had 
either  originally  belonged  to  the  old  Democratic, 

181 


1 82  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

party  (or  Republican  party  as  it  was  then  more  usu- 
ally called),  or  had  for  many  years  attached  them- 
selves to  it;  but  no  one  of  them  was' supported  on 
that  ground. 

The  Congressional  elections  in  Massachusetts  are 
held  a  year  in  advance.  It  was  not  till  December, 
1823,  that  Mr.  Webster  took  his  seat  as  a  member 
of  the  Eighteenth  Congress.  It  has  rarely  happened 
to  an  individual,  by  engaging  in  public  life,  to  make 
an  equal  sacrifice  of  personal  interest.  Born  to  an 
inheritance  of  poverty,  struggling  through  youth 
and  early  manhood  against  all  the  difficulties  of 
straitened  means  and  a  narrow  sphere,  he  had  risen 
above  them  all,  and  was  now  in  an  advantageous 
position,  at  the  height  of  his  reputation,  receiving 
as  great  a  professional  income  as  any  lawyer  in  the 
United  States,  and  rapidly  laying  the  foundation  of 
an  ample  independence.  All  this  was  to  be  put  at 
risk  for  the  hazardous  uncertainty,  and  the  scarcely 
less  hazardous  certainties,  of  public  life.  It  was 
not  till  after  repeated  refusals  of  a  nomination  to 
both  houses  of  Congress,  that  Mr.  Webster  was  at 
last  called  upon,  in  a  manner  which  seemed  to  him 
imperative,  to  make  the  great  sacrifice.  In  fact, 
it  may  truly  be  said,  that,  to  an  individual  of  his 
commanding  talent  and  familiarity  with  political 
affairs,  and  consequent  ability  to  take  a  lead  in  the 
public  business,  the  question  whether  he  shall  do  so 
is  hardly  submitted  to  his  option.  It  is  one  of  the 
great  privileges  of  second-rate  men,  that  they  are 
permitted  in  some  degree  to  follow  the  bent  of  their 
inclinations.  It  was  the  main  inducement  of  Mr. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  183 

Webster  in  returning  to  political  life,  that  the  cessa- 
tion of  the  coarse  conflicts  of  party  warfare  seemed 
to  hold  out  some  hope  that  statesmanship  of  a  higher 
order,  an  impartial  study  of  the  great  interests  of 
the  country,  ,and  a  policy  aiming  to  promote  the 
development  of  its  vast  natural  resources,  might 
be  called  into  action. 

Although  the  domestic  politics  of  the  United 
States  were  in  a  condition  of  repose,  the  politics  of 
Europe  at  this  time  were  disturbed  and  anxious. 
Revolutions  had  within  a  few  years  broken  out  in 
Naples,  Piedmont,  and  Spain;  while  in  Greece  a 
highly  interesting  struggle  was  in  progress,  between 
the  Christian  population  of  that  country  and  the 
government  of  their  Ottoman  oppressors.  At  an 
early  period  of  this  contest,  it  had  attracted  much 
notice  in  the  United  States.  President  Monroe,  both 
in  his  annual  message  of  December,  1822,  and  in 
that  of  1823,  had  expressed  respect  and  sympathy 
for  their  cause.  The  attention  of  Congress  being 
thus  called  to  the  subject,  Mr.  Webster  thought  it 
a  favorable  opportunity  to  speak  an  emphatic  word, 
from  a  quarter  whence  it  would  be  respected,  in 
favor  of  those  principles  of  rational  liberty  and  en- 
lightened progress  which  were  seeking  to  extend 
themselves  in  Europe.  As  the  great  strength  of  the 
Grecian  patriots  was  to  be  derived,  not  from  the 
aid  of  the  governments  of  Christendom,  but  from 
the  public  opinion  and  the  sympathy  of  the  civilized 
world,  he  felt  that  they  had  a  peculiar  right  to  expect 
some  demonstration  of  friendly  feeling  from  the 
only  powerful  republican  state.  He  was  also  evi- 


1 84  AMERICAN  BIOGRAPHY 

dently  willing  to  embrace  the  opportunity  of  enter- 
ing an  American  protest  against  the  doctrines  which 
had  been  promulgated  in  the  manifestoes  of  the 
recent  congresses  of  the  European  sovereigns. 

Till  the  administration  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  it  had 
been  the  custom  of  the  two  houses  to  return  answers 
to  the  annual  messages  of  the  President.  These 
answers  furnished  Congress  with  the  means  of  re- 
sponding to  the  executive  suggestions.  As  much 
time  was  often  consumed  in  debating  these  answers 
(a  consumption  of  time  not  directly  leading  to  any 
legislative  result),  and  as  differences  in  opinion  be- 
tween Congress  and  the  Executive,  if  they  existed, 
were  thus  prematurely  developed,  it  was  thought  a 
matter  of  convenience,  when  Mr.  Jefferson  came 
into  power,  to  depart  from  the  usage.  But  though 
attended  with  evils,  it  had  its  advantages.  The  op- 
portunity of  general  political  debate,  under  a  gov- 
ernment like  ours,  if  not  furnished,  will  be  taken. 
The  constituencies  look  to  their  representatives  to 
discuss  public  questions.  It  will  perhaps  be  found, 
on  comparing  the  proceedings  of  Congress  at  the 
present  day  with  what  they  were  fifty  years  ago,  that, 
although  the  general  debate  on  the  answer  to  the 
President's  message  has  been  retrenched,  there  is  in 
the  course  of  the  session  quite  as  much  discussion 
of  topics  incidentally  brought  in,  and  often  to  the 
serious  obstruction  of  the  public  business,  at  the 
advanced  stages  of  the  session. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  this  as  a  general 
principle,  President  Monroe,  as  we  have  seen,  hav- 
ing in  two  successive  annual  messages  called  the 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  1 8$ 

attention  of  Congress  to  this  subject,  Mr.  Webster, 
by  way  of  response  to  these  allusions,  at  an  early 
period  of  the  session  offered  the  following  resolution 
in  the  House  of  Representatives : — 

"  Resolved,  That  provision  ought  to  be  made  by  law  for  de- 
fraying the  expense  incident  to  the  appointment  of  an  agent  or 
commissioner  to  Greece,  whenever  the  President  shall  deem  it 
expedient  to  make  such  appointment." 

His  speech  in  support  of  this  resolution  was  de- 
livered on  the  1 9th  of  January,  1824,  in  the  presence 
of  an  immense  audience.  To  a  subject  on  which 
it  was  almost  impossible  to  avoid  a  certain  strain 
of  classical  sentiment,  Mr.  Webster  brought  a  chast- 
ened taste  and  a  severe  logic.  He  indulged  in  no 
ad  captandum  reference  to  the  topics  which  lay  most 
obviously  in  his  way.  A  single  allusion  to  Greece, 
as  the  mistress  of  the  world  in  letters  and  arts,  found 
an  appropriate  place  in  the  exordium.  But  he  neither 
rhapsodized  about  the  ancients,  nor  denounced  the 
Turks,  nor  overflowed  with  Americanism.  He 
treated,  in  a  statesmanlike  manner,  what  he  justly 
called  "  the  great  political  question  of  the  age,"  the 
question  "  between  absolute  and  regulated  govern- 
ments," and  the  duty  of  the  United  States  on  fitting 
occasions  to  let  their  voice  be  heard  on  this  ques- 
tion. He  concisely  reviewed  the  doctrines  of  the 
Continental  sovereigns,  as  set  forth  in  what  has 
been  called  "  the  Holy  Alliance,"  and  in  the  mani- 
festoes of  several  successive  congresses.  He  pointed 
out  the  inconsistency  of  these  principles  with  those 
of  self-government  and  national  independence,  and 


1 86  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

the  duty  of  the  United  States  to  declare  their  senti- 
ments in  support  of  the  latter.  He  showed  that  such 
a  declaration  was  inconsistent  with  no  principle  of 
public  law,  and  forbidden  by  no  prudential  consid- 
eration. He  briefly  sketched  the  history  of  the  Greek 
revolution ;  and  having  shown  that  his  proposal  was 
a  pacific  measure,  both  as  regards  the  Turkish  gov- 
ernment and  the  European  allies,  he  took  leave  of  the 
subject  with  a  few  manly  words  of  sympathy  for 
the  Greeks. 

He  was  supported  by  several  leading  members 
of  the  House, — by  Mr.  Clay,  Mr.  Stevenson  of 
Virginia,  afterward  Speaker  of  the  House  and  Min- 
ister of  England,  and  by  General  Houston  of  Ten- 
nessee; but  the  subject  lay  too  far  beyond  the  ordi- 
nary range  of  legislation ;  it  gained  no  strength  from 
the  calculations  of  any  of  the  Presidential  candi- 
dates ;  it  enlisted  none  of  the  great  local  interests  of 
the  country ;  and  it  was  not  of  a  nature  to  be  pushed 
against  opposition  or  indifference.  It  was  probably 
with  little  or  no  expectation  of  carrying  it,  that  the 
resolution  was  moved  by  Mr.  Webster.  His  object 
was  gained  in  the  opportunity  of  expressing  himself 
upon  the  great  political  question  of  the  day.  His 
words  of  encouragement  were  soon  read  in  every 
capital  and  at  every  court  of  Europe,  and  in  every 
Continental  language;  they  were  received  with  grate- 
ful emotion  in  Greece. 

It  was  during  this  session  that  Mr.  Webster  made 
his  great  argument  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  in  the  case  of  Gibbons  and  Ogden,  to 
which  we  have  already  alluded.  It  must  increase 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  I  $7 

the  admiration  with  which  this  great  constitutional 
effort  is  read,  to  know  that  the  case  came  on  in  court 
a  week  or  ten  days  earlier  than  Mr.  Webster  ex- 
pected, and  that  it  was  late  in  the  afternoon,  after 
a  severe  debate  in  the  House  of  Representatives  on 
some  of  the  details  of  the  tariff  bill,  that  he  received 
the  intimation  that  he  must  be  ready  to  go  into  court 
and  argue  the  cause  the  next  morning.  At  this  time 
his  brief  was  not  drawn  out;  and  the  statement  of 
the  argument,  the  selecting  of  the  authorities,  and 
the  final  digest  of  his  materials,  whether  of  reason- 
ing or  fact,  were  to  be  the  work  of  the  few  interven- 
ing hours.  It  is  superfluous  to  say  that  there  was 
no  long  space  for  rest  or  sleep;  though  it  seems 
hardly  credible  that  the  only  specific  premeditation 
of  such  an  argument  before  such  a  tribunal  should 
have  been  in  the  stolen  watches  of  one  night. 

In  the  course  of  this  session  Mr.  Webster,  besides 
taking  a  leading  part  in  the  discussion  of  the  details 
of  the  tariff  law  of  1824,  made  a  carefully  prepared 
speech,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Clay,  on  some  of  the  princi- 
ples upon  which  he  had  supported  it.  Mr.  Webster 
did  not  contest  the  constitutional  right  of  Congress 
to  lay  duties  for  the  protection  of  manufactures. 
He  opposed  the  bill  on  grounds  of  expediency,  drawn 
from  the  condition  of  the  country  at  the  time,  and 
from  the  unfriendly  bearing  of  some  of  its  provisions 
on  the  navigating  interests. 

No  subject  of  great  popular  interest  came  up  for 
debate  in  the  second  session  of  the  Eighteenth  Con- 
gress, but  the  attention  of  Mr.  Webster,  as  chairman 
of  the  Judiciary  Committee,  was  assiduously  devoted 


1 88  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

to  a  subject  of  great  practical  importance;  brought 
forward  entirely  without  ostentation  or  display,  but 
inferior  in  interest  to  scarce  any  act  of  legislation 
since  the  first  organization  of  government.  We 
refer  to  the  act  of  the  3d  of  March,  1825,  "more 
effectually  to  provide  for  the  punishment  of  certain 
crimes  against  the  United  States,  and  for  other 
purposes."  There  was  a  class  of  cases,  arising  out 
of  the  complex  nature  of  our  system,  and  the  two- 
fold jurisdiction  existing  in  the  United  States, 
which,  being  entirely  novel  in  the  history  of  other 
governments,  was  scarcely  to  be  provided  for  in  ad- 
vance. The  analysis  of  the  English  constitution  here 
failed  the  able  men  upon  whom  it  devolved  to  put 
the  new  system  of  government  in  operation.  It  is 
to  be  wondered  at,  not  that  some  things  were  over- 
looked, but  that  so  many  were  provided  for. 

Of  the  cases  left  thus  unprovided  for,  more  per- 
haps were  to  be  found  in  the  judiciary  department 
than  in  any  other.  Many  crimes  committed  on  ship- 
board, beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  any  State,  or  in 
places  within  the  Union  excepted  from  State  juris- 
diction, were  unprovided  for.  Mr.  Webster  accord- 
ingly drew  up  what  finally  passed  the  two  houses, 
as  the  sixty-fifth  chapter  of  the  laws  of  the  second 
session  of  the  Eighteenth  Congress,  and  procured  the 
assent  of  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary  to  report  it 
to  the  House.  Some  amendments  of  no  great  mo- 
ment were  made  to  it  on  its  passage,  partly  on  the 
motion  of  Mr.  Webster  himself,  and  partly  on  the 
suggestion  of  other  members  of  the  House.  As  it 
finally  passed,  in  twenty-six  sections,  it  covered  all 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  189 

the  cases  which  had  occurred  in  the  thirty-five  years 
which  had  elapsed  since  the  law  of  1790  was  en- 
acted; and  it  amounted  to  a  brief,  but  comprehen- 
sive, code  of  the  criminal  jurisprudence  of  the  United 
States,  as  distinct  from  that  of  the  separate  States. 
At  this  session  of  Congress  the  election  of  a  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  devolved  upon  the  House 
of  Representatives,  in  default  of  a  popular  choice. 
The  votes  of  the  electoral  colleges  were  ninety-nine 
for  General  Jackson,  eighty-four  for  Mr.  Adams, 
forty-one  for  Mr.  Crawford,  and  thirty-seven  for 
Mr.  Clay.  This  was  the  second  time  since  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  in  1789,  and  such  an  event 
had  occurred.  The  other  case  was  in  1801,  and 
under  the  Constitution  in  its  original  form,  which 
required  the  electoral  colleges  to  vote  for  two  per- 
sons, without  designating  which  of  the  two  was  to 
be  President,  and  which  Vice-President,  the  choice 
between  the  two  to  be  decided  by  plurality.  The 
Republican  candidates,  Thomas  Jefferson  and  Aaron 
Burr,  having  received  each  an  equal  number  of  votes, 
it  devolved  upon  the  House  of  Representatives  to 
designate  one  of  them  as  President.  The  Constitu- 
tion was  immediately  amended  so  as  to  require  the 
candidates  for  the  two  offices  to  be  designated  as 
such  in  the  electoral  colleges;  so  that  precisely  such 
a  case  as  that  of  1801  can  never  recur.  In  1824, 
however,  no  person  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the  votes,  it  became  necessary  for  the  House  to 
choose  a  President  from  among  the  three  candidates 
having  the  highest  number.  On  these  occasions  the 
House  votes,  not  per  capita,  but  by  States.  The  re- 


190  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

suit  was  declared  to  be,  for  Mr.  Adams  thirteen 
votes,  for  General  Jackson  seven,  and  for  Mr.  Craw- 
ford four. 

Mr.  Webster  had  been  elected  to  the  Nineteenth 
Congress  in  the  autumn  of  1824,  by  a  vote  of  four 
thousand  nine  hundred  and  ninety  out  of  five  thou- 
sand votes  cast,  the  nearest  approach  to  unanimity 
in  a  Congressional  election,  perhaps,  that  ever  took 
place.  The  session  which  began  in  December,  1825, 
was  of  course  the  first  session  under  Mr.  Adams's 
administration.  The  brief  armistice  in  party  war- 
fare which  existed  under  Mr.  Monroe  was  over. 
The  friends  of  General  Jackson  en  masse,  most  of 
the  friends  of  Mr.  Crawford,  and  a  portion  of  those 
of  Mr.  Clay,  joined  in  a  violent  opposition  to  the 
new  administration.  It  would  be  impossible  in  this 
place  to  unfold  the  griefs,  the  interests,  the  projects, 
the  jealousies,  and  the  mutual  struggles,  of  the  lead- 
ers and  the  factions,  who,  with  no  community  of 
political  principle,  entered  into  this  warfare.  The 
absence  of  any  well-defined  division  of  parties,  like 
that  which  had  formerly  existed,  gave  wide  scope 
to  personal  intrigue  and  sectional  preference.  Al- 
though, estimated  in  reference  to  individual  suf- 
frages. Mr.  Adams  had  received  a  popular  majority ; 
and  although  he  was  selected  from  the  three  highest 
candidates  by  an  absolute  majority  of  the  States  vot- 
ing in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  by  a  very 
large  plurality  over  each  of  his  competitors,  yet, 
as  General  Jackson  had  received  a  small  plurality  of 
votes  in  the  electoral  colleges  (but  a  little  more,  how- 
ever, than  a  third  part  of  the  entire  electoral  vote), 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  191 

he  stood  before  the  masses  as  a  candidate  wrong-fully 
deprived  of  the  place  to  which  he  was  designated 
by  the  popular  choice.  Great  sensibility  was  evinced 
at  this  defeat  of  the  "  Will  of  the  People ;  "  and  none 
seemed  to  feel  the  wrong  more  than  a  portion  of 
the  friends  of  that  one  of  the  three  candidates  who 
had  received  the  smallest  vote,  but  whom  there  had 
been,  nevertheless,  a  confident  hope  of  electing  in 
the  House.  The  prejudice  against  Mr.  Adams  aris- 
ing from  this  source  derived  strength  from  the 
widely  circulated  calumny  of  a  corrupt  understand- 
ing between  him  and  Mr.  Clay.  The  bare  suspicion 
of  an  arrangement  between  party  leeaders  to  help 
each  other  into  office,  however  groundless  in  point  of 
fact,  and  however  disproved  by  all  the  testimony 
which  could  be  brought  to  bear  on  a  negative  propo- 
sition, was  sufficient  seriously  to  affect  the  popular- 
ity of  both  parties. 

Mr.  Adams's  administration  was  conducted  with 
the  highest  ability ;  it  was  incorruptible ;  it  was  fru- 
gal ;  it  was  tolerant  of  opponents  to  its  own  injury. 
With  the  exception  of  half  a  dozen  editors  of  news- 
papers warmly  opposed  to  the  administration,  from 
whom  the  trifling  privilege  of  printing  the  laws  was 
withdrawn,  no  one  was  removed  from  office  for 
political  opinion.  But  the  administration  was  un- 
popular, and  was  doomed  from  its  formation.  It 
was  supported  by  very  able  men  in  both  houses  of 
Congress,  and  of  these  Mr.  Webster  was  by  all  ac- 
knowledgment the  chief.  But  it  failed  to  command 
the  confidence  of  a  numerical  majority  of  the  people. 

The  leading  measure  of  the  first  session  of  the 


AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

Nineteenth  Congress  was  the  Congress  of  Panama. 
Mr.  Adams  had  announced  in  his  message  at  the 
commencement  of  the  session,  that  an  invitation  to 
the  congress  had  been  accepted,  and  that  "  ministers 
on  the  part  of  the  United  States  would  be  com- 
missioned to  attend  its  deliberations."  The  con- 
firmation of  the  ministers  was  vigorously  resisted  in 
the  Senate,  and  the  resolution  declaring  the  expedi- 
ency of  making  the  requisite  appropriation  as  strenu- 
ously opposed  in  the  House. 

The  subject  was  discussed  with  great  ability  in 
both  houses.  The  greater  portion  of  the  senatorial 
debate  was  with  closed  doors.  Mr.  Webster's  speech 
in  the  House  is  far  the  ablest  of  those  published. 
It  raised  the  question  from  the  wretched  level  of 
party  politics  to  the  elevation  of  real  statesmanship. 
It  discussed  the  constitutional  question  with  a  clear- 
ness and  power  which  make  us  wonder  that  it  was 
ever  raised;  and  it  unfolded  the  true  nature  of  the 
proposed  congress,  as  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  pub- 
lic law.  A  very  important  topic  of  the  speech  was 
an  explanation  of  the  declaration  of  President  Mon- 
roe, in  his  annual  message  of  1823,  against  the  in- 
terposition of  the  governments  of  Europe  for  the 
purpose  of  enabling  Spain  to  resubjugate  her  former 
colonial  possessions  on  this  continent.  Mr.  Webster 
pointed  out  the  circumstances  which  warranted  at 
the  time  the  opinion  that  such  interposition  might 
be  attempted ;  and  he  stated  the  important  fact,  not 
before  known,  that  the  purpose  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States  to  resist  it  was  deliberately  and  unani- 
mously formed  by  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet,  consisting 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  193 

at  that  time  of  Messrs.  Adams,  Crawford,  Calhoun, 
Southard,  and  Wirt. 

The  speech  on  the  Panama  question  was  the  most 
considerable  effort  made  by  Mr.  Webster  in  the 
Nineteenth  Congress.  In  the  interval  of  the  two  ses- 
sions, in  November,  1826,  he  was  reflected  with  but 
a  show  of  opposition.  The  eulogy  upon  Adams  and 
Jefferson,  of  which  we  have  already  spoken,  was  de- 
livered in  the  month  of  August  of  this  year.  In  the 
month  of  June,  1827,  Mr.  Webster  was  elected  to 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  by  a  large  majority 
of  the  votes  of  the  two  houses  of  the  legislature  of 
Massachusetts. 

The  principal  measure  which  occupied  the  atten- 
tion of  the  two  houses  during  the  first  session  of  the 
Twentieth  Congress  was  the  revision  of  the  tariff. 
This  measure  had  its  origin  in  the  distressed  condi- 
tion of  the  woollen  interests,  which  found  itself  de- 
prived (partly  by  the  effect  of  the  repeal  of  the  duty 
on  wool  imported  into  Great  Britain)  of  that  meas- 
ure of  protection  which  the  tariff  law  of  1824  was 
designed  to  afford.  An  unsuccessful  attempt  had 
been  made  at  the  last  session  of  Congress,  to  pass 
a  law  exclusively  for  the  relief  of  the  woollen  manu- 
facturers ;  but  no  law  having  in  view  the  protection 
of  any  one  great  interest  is  likely  to  be  enacted  by 
Congress,  however  called  for  by  the  particular  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case.  At  the  present  session  an  en- 
tire revision  of  the  tariff  was  attempted.  A  major- 
ity of  the  two  houses  was  in  favor  of  protection ;  but 
there  were  different  views  among  the  friends  of  the 
policy  as  to  the  articles  to  be  protected  and  the 

A.  B.,  VOL.  VI.—  13 


194  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

amount  of  protection.  This  diversity  of  opinions 
and  supposed  diversity  .of  interests  enabled  those 
wholly  opposed  to  the  principle  and  policy  of  protec- 
tion, by  uniting  their  votes  on  questions  of  detail 
with  members  who  represented  local  interests,  to 
render  the  bill  objectionable  in  many  parts  to  several 
of  its  friends,  and  to  reduce  them  to  the  alternative 
of  either  voting  against  it,  or  tolerating  more  or  less 
which  they  deemed  inexpedient,  and  even  highly  in- 
jurious. Hence  it  received  the  name  of  the  "  Bill 
of  Abominations." 

Mr.  Webster  addressed  the  Senate,  while  the  bill 
was  before  that  body,  exposing  the  objectionable 
features  to  which  we  have  alluded.  Believing,  how- 
ever, that  the  great  article  of  woollens  required  the 
protection  given  it  by  the  bill,  and  regarding  the 
general  system  of  protection  as  the  established  policy 
of  the  country  and  of  the  government,  and  feeling 
that  the  capital  which  had  been  invited  into  manu- 
factures by  former  acts  of  legislation  was  now  en- 
titled to  be  sustained  against  the  glut  of  foreign  mar- 
kets, fraudulent  invoices,  and  the  competition  of 
foreign  labor  working  at  starvation  wages,  he  gave 
his  vote  for  the  bill,  and  ever  afterward  supported 
the  policy  of  moderate  protection.  He  has  been 
accused  of  inconsistency  in  this  respect ;  and  by  none 
more  earnestly  than  by  the  friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun, 
who  was  one  of  those  influential  statesmen  of  the 
South  by  whom,  in  the  Fourteenth  Congress,  the 
foundation  of  a  protective  tariff  was  laid  on  the 
corner-stone  of  the  square-yard  duty  on  domestic 
cotton  fabrics.  But  he  was  sustained  by  the  great 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  19$ 

majority  of  his  constituents  and  of  the  people  of 
the  Northern,  Middle,  and  Northwestern  States; 
and  should  the  prospects  of  success  be  fulfilled  with 
which  manufactures  have  been  attempted  at  the 
South,  there  is  little  doubt  that  she  will  at  length 
perceive  that  her  own  interest  would  be  promoted 
by  upholding  the  same  policy. 

When  the  speech  of  Mr.  Webster  of  1824,  in 
Which  he  assigned  his  reasons  for  voting  against  the 
tariff  law  of  that  year,  is  carefully  compared  with 
his  speech  of  1828,  just  referred  to,  it  will  be  found 
that  there  is  no  other  diversity  than  that  which 
was  induced  by  the  change  in  the  state  of  the  coun- 
try itself  in  reference  to  its  manufacturing  interests, 
and  by  the  course  pursued  in  reference  to  the  details 
of  the  bill  by  those  opposed  to  protection  in  toto. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Election  of  General  Jackson. — Debate  on  Foot's  Resolution. — 
Mr.  Hayne's  First  Speech. — Mr.  Webster's  First  Speech.— 
Reply  of  Mr.  Hayne. — Mr.  Webster's  Great  Speech. — De- 
scription from  March's  "  Reminiscences  of  Congress." — Re- 
ception throughout  the  Country. 

IN  the  interval  between  the  two  sessions  of  the 
Twentieth  Congress,  the  Presidential  election  was 
decided.  Mr.  Adams  and  General  Jackson  were  the 
opposing  candidates;  and  the  latter  was  chosen  by 
a  large  popular  majority;  but  that  there  was  no 
cordiality  among  the  component  elements  of  the 
party  by  which  General  Jackson  was  elevated  to  the 
chair  was  soon  quite  apparaent. 

The  first  session  of  the  Twenty-first  Congress, 
that  of  1829-30,  is  rendered  memorable  in  the  his- 
tory of  Mr.  Webster,  as  well  as  in  the  parliamentary 
history  of  the  country,. by  what  has  been  called  the 
debate  on  Foot's  resolution,  in  which  Mr.  Webster 
delivered  the  speech  which  is  usually  regarded  as 
his  ablest,  and  which  may  probably  with  truth  be 
pronounced  the  most  celebrated  speech  ever  delivered 
in  Congress.  The  great  importance  of  this  effort 
will  no  doubt  be  considered  as  a  sufficient  reason 
for  relating  somewhat  in  detail  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  made. 

The  debate  arose  in  the  following  manner. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  1 97 

On  the  29th  of  December,  1829,  Mr.  Foot,  one  of 
the  Senators  from  Connecticut,  moved  the  following 
resolution : — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Public  Lands  be  in- 
structed to  inquire  and  report  the  quantity  of  public  lands  re- 
maining unsold  within  each  State  and  Territory,  and  whether 
it  be  expedient  to  limit  for  a  certain  period  the  sales  of  the 
public  lands  to  such  lands  only  as  have  heretofore  been  offered 
for  sale,  and  are  now  subject  to  entry  at  the  minimum  price. 
And,  also,  whether  the  office  of  Surveyor-General,  and  some  of 
the  land  offices,  may  not  be  abolished  without  detriment  to  the 
public  interest." 

There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that,  in  bringing 
forward  this  resolution,  Mr.  Foot  acted  in  concert 
with  any  other  member  of  the  Senate.  When  it  came 
up  for  consideration  the  next  day,  the  mover  stated 
that  he  had  been  induced  to  offer  the  resolution  from 
having  at  the  last  session  examined  the  report  of 
the  Commissioner  of  the  Land  Office,  from  which 
it  appeared  that  the  quantity  of  land  remaining  un- 
sold at  the  minimum  price  of  one  dollar  and  twenty- 
five  cents  per  acre  exceeded  seventy-two  millions  of 
acres ;  while  it  appeared  from  the  commissioner's 
report  at  this  session,  that  the  annual  demand  was 
not  likely  to  exceed  a  million  of  acres  at  present, 
although  of  course  it  might  be  expected  somewhat 
to  increase  with  the  growth  of  the  population. 

This  resolution,  though  one  of  inquiry  only,  was 
resisted.  It  was  represented  by  Mr.  Benton  of  Mis- 
souri as  a  resolution  to  inquire  into  the  expediency 
of  committing  a  great  injury  upon  the  new  States 
of  the  West.  Mr.  Holmes  of  Maine  supported  the 
resolution,  as  one  of  inquiry  into  an  important  sub- 


198  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

ject.  Mr.  Foot  disclaimed  every  purpose  unfriendly 
to  the  West,  and  at  the  close  of  the  conversation  (in 
which  Mr.  Webster  took  no  part),  it  was  agreed 
that  the  consideration  of  the  resolution  should  be 
postponed  to  the  nth  of  January,  and  made  the 
special  order  of  the  day  for  that  day. 

When  the  resolution  came  up  it  was  discussed  by 
Mr.  Benton  of  Missouri  and  Mr.  Holmes  of  Maine. 
Other  members  took  some  part  in  the  debate,  and 
then  Mr.  Hayne  of  South  Carolina  commenced  a 
speech,  which  occupied  the  rest  of  the  day.  Mr. 
Hayne  was  one  of  the  younger  members  of  the 
Senate.  He  came  forward  in  his  native  State  in 
1814,  when  hardly  of  age,  with  great  eclat,  filled  in 
rapid  succession  responsible  offices,  and  came  to  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  in  1823,  with  a  reputa- 
tion already  brilliant,  and  rapidly  increasing.  He 
was  active  and  diligent  in  business,  fluent,  graceful, 
and  persuasive  as  a  debater ;  of  a  sanguine  and  self- 
relying  temper;  shrinking  from  no  antagonist,  and 
disposed  to  take  the  part  of  a  champion. 

Mr.  Webster,  up  to  this  time,  had  not  participated 
in  the  debate,  which  had  in  fact  been  rather  a  point- 
less affair,  and  was  dragging  its  slow  length  through 
the  Senate,  no  one  knew  exactly  to  what  purpose. 
It  had  as  yet  assumed  no  character  in  which  it  in- 
vited or  required  his  attention.  He  was  much  en- 
gaged at  the  time  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  Leaving  the  court-room  when  the 
court  adjourned  on  Tuesday,  the  iQth,  Mr.  Web- 
ster came  into  the  Senate  in  season  to  hear  the 
greater  part  of  Mr.  Hayne's  speech ;  and  it  was  sug- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  199 

gested  to  him  by  several  friends  that  an  immediate 
answer  to  Mr.  Hayne  was  due  from  him.  The  line 
of  discussion  pursued  by  the  Senator  from  South 
Carolina  was  such  as  to  require,  if  not  to  provoke, 
an  immediate  answer  from  the  North.  Mr.  Webster 
accordingly  rose  when  Mr.  Hayne  took  his  seat, 
but  gave  way  to  a  motion  for  adjournment  from  Mr. 
Benton.  These  circumstances  will  sufficiently  show 
how  entirely  without  premeditation,  and  with  what 
preoccupation  by  other  trains  of  thought,  Mr.  Web- 
ster was  led  into  this  great  intellectual  conflict. 

He  appeared  in  the  Senate  the  next  morning, 
Wednesday,  January  2Oth,  and  Mr.  Foot's  resolu- 
tion being  called  up,  was  modified,  on  the  suggestion 
of  Messrs.  Sprague  of  Maine  and  Woodbury  oi 
New  Hampshire,  by  adding  the  following  clause : — 

"  Or  whether  it  be  expedient  to  adopt  measures  to  hasten  the 
sales  and  extend  more  rapidly  the  surveys  of  the  public  lands." 

Mr.  Webster  immediately  proceeded  with  the  de- 
bate. No  elaborate  preparation,  of  course,  could 
have  been  made  by  him,  as  the  speech  of  Mr.  Hayne. 
to  which  his  reply  was  mainly  directed,  was  delivered 
the  day  before.  He  vindicated  the  government, 
under  its  successive  administrations,  from  the  gen- 
eral charge  of  having  managed  the  public  lands  in 
a  spirit  of  hostility  to  the  Western  States.  He  par- 
ticularly defended  New  England  against  the  accu- 
sation of  hostility  to  the  West.  A  passage  in  this 
part  of  his  speech,  contrasting  Ohio  as  she  was  in 
1794  with  the  Ohio  of  1830,  will  compare  advan- 
tageously with  any  thing  in  his  speeches.  In  speak- 
ing of  the  settlement  of  the  West,  Mr,  Webster  in- 


20O  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

troduced  with  just  commendation  the  honored  name 
of  Nathan  Dane,  as  the  author  of  the  Ordinance  of 
1787,  for  the  organization  and  government  of  the 
territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio.  He  maintained 
that  every  measure  of  legislation  beneficial  to  the 
West  had  been  carried  in  Congress  by  the  aid  of 
New  England  votes,  and  he  closed  by  an  allusion  to 
his  own  course  as  uniformly  friendly  to  that  part 
of  the  Union.  Mr.  Benton  followed  Mr.  Webster, 
and  commenced  a  speech  in  reply. 

The  next  day,  Thursday,  the  2ist,  the  subject 
again  came  up,  and  it  was  now  evident  that  the  de- 
bate had  put  on  a  new  character.  Its  real  interest 
and  importance  were  felt  to  be  commencing.  Air. 
Chambers  expressed  the  hope  that  the  Senate  would 
consent  to  postpone  the  further  consideration  of 
the  resolution  till  the  next  Monday,  as  Mr.  Web- 
ster, who  had  engaged  in  the  discussion  and  wished 
to  be  present  when  it  should  be  resumed,  had  press- 
ing engagements  out  of  the  house,  and  could  not 
conveniently  give  his  attendance  in  the  Senate  before 
Monday.  *  Mr.  Hayne  said  "  he  saw  the  gentleman 
from  Massachusetts  in  his  seat,  and  presumed  he 
could  make  an  arrangement  which  would  enable 
him  to  be  present  here,  during  the  discussion  to- 
day. He  was  unwilling  that  this  subject  should  be 
postponed  before  he  had  an  opportunity  of  replying 
to  some  of  the  observations  which  had  fallen  from 
that  gentleman  yesterday.  He  would  not  deny  that 

*  Mr.  Chambers  referred  to  the  case  in  court  just  mentioned, 
in  which  Mr.  Webster  was  engaged,  and  in  which  the  argument 
had  already  begun. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  2OI 

some  things  had  fallen  from  him  which  rankled  * 
here  (touching  his  breast),  from  which  he  would 
desire  at  once  to  relieve  himself.  The  gentleman 
had  discharged  his  fire  in  the  presence  of  the  Sen- 
ate. He  hoped  he  would  now  afford  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  returning  the  shot." 

The  manner  in  which  this  was  said  was  not  such 
as  to  soften  the  harshness  of  the  sentiment.  It  will 
be  difficult,  in  reverting  to  Mr.  Webster's  speech, 
to  find  either  in  its  substance  or  spirit  any  adequate 
grounds  for  the  feeling  manifested  by  Mr.  Hayne. 
Nor  would  it  probably  be  easy  in  the  history  of 
Congress  to  find  another  case  in  which  a  similar  act 
of  accommodation  in  the  way  of  postponing  a  sub- 
ject has  been  refused,  at  least  on  such  a  ground.  Mr. 
Webster,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Hayne's  remark,  that  he 
wished  without  delay  to  return  his  shot,  said,  "  Let 
the  discussion  proceed;  I  am  ready  now  to  receive 
the  gentleman's  fire." 

Mr.  Benton  then  addressed  the  Senate  for  about 
an  hour,  in  conclusion  of  the  speech  which  he  had 
commenced  the  day  before.  At  the  close  of  Mr. 
Benton's  argument,  Mr.  Bell  of  New  Hampshire 
moved  that  the  further  consideration  of  the  subject 
should  be  postponed  till  Monday,  but  the  motion 
was  negatived.  Mr.  Hayne  then  took  the  floor,  and 
spoke  for  about  an  hour  in  reply  to  Mr.  Webster's 
remarks  of  the  preceding  day.  Before  he  had  con- 
cluded his  argument,  the  Senate  adjourned  till  Mon- 
day. On  that  day,  January  the  25th,  he  spoke  for 
two  hours  and  a  half,  and  completed  his  speech.  Mr. 

*  Mr.  Hayne  subsequently  disclaimed  having  used  this  word. 


202  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

Webster  immediately  rose  to  reply,  but  the  day  was 
far  advanced,  and  he  yielded  to  a  motion  for 
adjournment. 

The  second  speech  of  Mr.  Hayne,  to  which  Mr. 
Webster  was  now  called  upon  to  reply,  was  still 
more  strongly  characterized  than  the  first  with  se- 
verity, not  to  say  bitterness,  toward  the  Eastern 
States.  The  tone  toward  Mr.  Webster  personally 
was  not  courteous.  It  bordered  on  the  offensive.  It 
was  difficult  not  to  find  in  both  of  the  speeches  of 
the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  the  indication  of 
a  preconceived  purpose  to  hold  up  New  England, 
and  Mr.  Webster  as  her  most  distinguished  repre- 
sentative, to  public  odium.  In  his  second  speech, 
Mr.  Hayne  reaffirmed  and  urged  those  constitutional 
opinions  which  are  usually  known  as  the  doctrines 
of  Nullification;  that  is  to  say,  the  assumed  right 
of  a  State,  when  she  deems  herself  oppressed  by 
an  unconstitutional  act  of  Congress,  to  declare  by 
State  ordinance  the  act  of  Congress  null  and  void, 
and  discharge  the  citizens  of  the  State  from  the  duty 
of  obedience. 

Such  being  the  character  of  Mr.  Hayne's  speech, 
Mr.  Webster  had  three  objects  to  accomplish  in  his 
answer.  The  first  was  to  repel  the  personalities 
toward  himself,  which  formed  one  of  the  most  prom- 
inent features  of  Mr.  Hayne's  speech.  This  object 
was  accomplished  by  a  few  retaliatory  strokes,  in 
which  the  severest  sarcasm  was  so  mingled  with 
unaffected  good  humor  and  manly  expostulation,  as 
to  carry  captive  the  sympathy  of  the  audience.  The 
vindication  of  the  Eastern  States  generally,  and  of 


I  (    DANIEL    WEBSTER  203 

Massachusetts  in  particular,  was  the  second  object, 
and  was  pursued  in  a  still  higher  strain.  When  it 
was  finished,  no  one  probably  regretted  more  keenly 
than  the  accomplished  antagonist  the  easy  credence 
which  he  had  lent  to  the  purveyors  of  forgotten 
scandal,  some  of  whom  were  present,  and  felt  grate- 
ful for  their  obscurity. 

The  third  and  far  the  more  important  object  with 
Mr.  Webster  was  the  constitutional  argument,  in 
which  he  asserted  the  character  of  our  political  sys- 
tem as  a  government  established  by  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  in  contradistinction  to  a  compact  be- 
tween the  separate  States;  and  exposed  the  fallacy 
of  attempting  to  turn  the  natural  right  of  revolution 
against  the  government  into  a  right  reserved  under 
the  Constitution  to  overturn  the  government  itself. 

Several  chapters  of  the  interesting  work  of  Mr. 
March,  already  referred  to,*  are  devoted  to  the  sub- 
ject of  this  debate;  and  we  have  thought  that  we 
could  in  no  way  convey  to  the  reader  so  just  and  dis- 
tinct an  impression  of  the  effect  of  Mr.  Webster's 
speech  at  the  time  of  its  delivery,  as  by  borrowing 
largely  from  his  animated  pages. 

"  It  was  on  Tuesday,  January  the  26th,  1830, — a  day  to  be 
hereafter  for  ever  memorable  in  Senatorial  annals, — that  the 
Senate  resumed  the  consideration  of  Foot's  resolution.  There 
never  was  before,  in  the  city,  an  occasion  of  so  much  excite- 
ment. To  witness  this  great  intellectual  contest,  multitudes  of 
strangers  had  for  two  or  three  days  previous  been  rushing  into 
the  city,  and  the  hotels  overflowed.  As  early  as  9  o'clock  of 
this  morning,  crowds  poured  into  the  Capitol,  in  hot  haste ;  at 
12  o'clock,  the  hour  of  meeting,  the  Senate-chamber — its  gal- 

*  Reminiscences  of  Congress. 


204  AMERICAN  BIOGRAPHY 

leries,  floor,  and  even  lobbies — was  filled  to  its  utmost  capacity. 
The  very  stairways  were  dark  with  men,  who  clung  to  one  an- 
other, like  bees  in  a  swarm. 

"  The  House  of  Representatives  was  early  deserted.  An  ad- 
journment would  have  hardly  made  it  emptier.  The  Speaker, 
it  is  true,  retained  his  chair,  but  no  business  of  moment  was. 
or  could  be,  attended  to.  Members  all  rushed  in  to  hear  Mr. 
Webster,  and  no  call  of  the  House  or  other  parliamentary  pro- 
ceedings could  compel  them  back.  The  floor  of  the  Senate 
was  so  densely  crowded,  that  persons  once  in  could  not  get  out, 
nor  change  their  position ;  in  the  rear  of  the  Vice-Presidential 
chair,  the  crowd  was  particularly  intense.  Dixon  H.  Lewis, 
then  a  Representative  from  Alabama,  became  wedged  in  here. 
From  his  enormous  size,  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  move 
without  displacing  a  vast  portion  of  the  multitude.  Unfor- 
tunately, too,  for  him,  he  was  jammed  in  directly  behind  the 
chair  of  the  Vice-President,  where  he  could  not  see,  and 
hardly  hear,  the  speaker.  By  slow  and  laborious  effort,  paus- 
ing occasionally  to  breathe,  he  gained  one  of  the  windows, 
which,  constructed  of  painted  glass,  flank  the  chair  of  the  Vice- 
President  on  either  side.  Here  he  paused,  unable  to  make 
more  headway.  But  determined  to  see  Mr.  Webster  as  he 
spoke,  with  his  knife  he  made  a  large  hole  in  one  of  the  panes 
of  the  glass ;  which  is  still  visible  as  he  made  it.  Many  were 
so  placed  as  not  to  be  able  to  see  the  speaker  at  all. 

"  The  courtesy  of  Senators  accorded  to  the  fairer  sex  room 
on  the  floor, — the  most  gallant  of  them,  their  own  seats.  The 
gay  bonnets  and  brilliant  dresses  threw  a  varied  and  picturesque 
beauty  over  the  scene,  softening  and  embellishing  it. 

"  Seldom,  if  ever,  has  speaker  in  this  or  any  other  country 
had  more  powerful  incentives  to  exertion;  a  subject,  the  deter- 
mination of  which  involved  the  most  important  interests,  and 
even  duration,  of  the  republic ;  competitors,  unequalled  in  repu- 
tation, ability,  or  position ;  a  name  to  make  still  more  glorious, 
or  lose  for  ever;  and  an  audience,  comprising  not  only  persons 
of  this  country  most  eminent  in  intellectual  greatness,  but  rep- 
resentatives of  other  nations,  where  the  art  of  eloquence  had 
flourished  for  ages.  All  the  soldier  seeks  in  opportunity 
was  here. 

"  Mr.  Webster  perceived,  and  felt  equal  to,  the  destinies  of 
the  moment.  The  very  greatness  of  the  hazard  exhilarated 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  2O$ 

him.  His  spirits  rose  with  the  occasion.  He  awaited  the  time 
of  onset  with  a  stern  and  impatient  joy.  He  felt  like  the  war- 
horse  of  the  Scriptures,  who  '  paweth  in  the  valley,  and  re- 
joiceth  in  his  strength :  who  goeth  on  to  meet  the  armed  men, — 
who  saith  among  the  trumpets,  Ha,  ha !  and  who  smelleth  the 
battle  afar  off,  the  thunder  of  the  captains  and  the  shouting.' 

"  A  confidence  in  his  own  resources,  springing  from  no  vain 
estimate  of  his  power,  but  the  legitimate  offspring  of  previous 
severe  mental  discipline,  sustained  and  excited  him.  He  had 
gauged  his  opponents,  his  subject,  and  himself. 

"  He  was,  too,  at  this  period,  in  the  very  prime  of  manhood. 
He  had  reached  middle  age, — an  era  in  the  life  of  man  when 
the  faculties,  physical  or  intellectual,  may  be  supposed  to  attain 
their  fullest  organization  and  most  perfect  development.  What- 
ever there  was  in  him  of  intellectual  energy  and  vitality,  the 
occasion,  his  full  life,  and  high  ambition  might  well  bring 
forth. 

"  He  never  rose  on  an  ordinary  occasion  to  address  an  or- 
dinary audience  more  self-possessed.  There  was  no  tremulous- 
ness  in  his  voice  or  manner;  nothing  hurried,  nothing  simu- 
lated. The  calmness  of  superior  strength  was  visible  every- 
where ;  in  countenance,  voice,  and  bearing.  A  deep-seated 
conviction  of  the  extraordinary  character  of  the  emergency,  and 
of  his  ability  to  control  it,  seemed  to  possess  him  wholly.  If 
an  observer,  more  than  ordinarily  keen-sighted,  detected  at 
tfimes  something  like  exultation  in  his  eye,  he  presumed  it 
sprang  from  the  excitement  of  the  moment,  and  the  anticipa- 
tion of  victory. 

"  The  anxiety  to  hear  the  speech  was  so  intense,  irrepress- 
ible, and  universal,  that  no  sooner  had  the  Vice-President  as- 
sumed the  chair  than  a  motion  was  made,  and  unanimously 
carried,  to  postpone  the  ordinary  preliminaries  of  Senatorial 
action,  and  to  take  up  immediately  the  consideration  of  the 
resolution. 

"  Mr.  Webster  rose  and  addressed  the  Senate.  His  ex- 
ordium is  known  by  heart  everywhere :  '  Mr.  President,  when 
the  mariner  has  been  tossed,  for  many  days,  in  thick  weather, 
and  on  an  unknown  sea,  he  naturally  avails  himself  of  the  first 
pause  in  the  storm,  the  earliest  glance  of  the  sun,  to  take  his 
latitude,  and  ascertain  how  far  the  elements  have  driven  him 
from  his  true  course.  Let  us  imitate  this  prudence,  and,  before 


206  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

we  float  farther  on  the  waves  of  this  debate,  refer  to  the  point 
from  which  we  departed,  that  we  may  at  least  be  able  to  con- 
jecture where  we  now  are.  I  ask  for  the  reading  of  the  reso- 
lution before  the  Senate.' 

"  There  wanted  no  more  to  enchain  the  attention.  There 
was  a  spontaneous,  though  silent,  expression  of  eager  appro- 
bation, as  the  orator  concluded  these  opening  remarks. 


"  Those  who  had  doubted  Mr.  Webster's  ability  to  cope  with 
and  overcome  his  opponents  were  fully  satisfied  of  their  error 
before  he  had  proceeded  far  in  his  speech.  'Their  fears  soon 
took  another  direction.  When  they  heard  his  sentences  of 
powerful  thought,  towering  in  accumulative  grandeur,  one 
above  the  other,  as  if  the  orator  strove,  Titan-like,  to  reach  the 
very  heavens  themselves,  they  were  giddy  with  an  apprehension 
that  he  would  break  down  in  his  flight.  They  dared  not  be- 
lieve that  genius,  learning,  and  intellectual  endowment  how- 
ever uncommon,  that  was  simply  mortal,  could  sustain  itself 
long  in  a  career  seemingly  so  perilous.  They  feared  an 
Icarian  fall. 


"  What  New  England  heart  was  there  but  throbbed  with 
vehement,  tumultuous,  irrepressible  emotion,  as  he  dwelt  upon 
New  England  sufferings,  New  England  struggles,  and  New 
England  triumphs  during  the  war  of  the  Revolution?  There 
was  scarcely  a  dry  eye  in  the  Senate ;  all  hearts  were  overcome ; 
grave  judges  and  men  grown  old  in  dignified  life  turned  aside 
their  heads,  to  conceal  the  evidences  of  their  emotion. 

"  In  one  corner  of  the  gallery  was  clustered  a  group  of 
Massachusetts  men.  They  had  hung  from  the  first  moment 
upon  the  words  of  the  speaker,  with  feelings  variously  but 
always  warmly  excited,  deepening  in  intensity  as  he  proceeded. 
At  first,  while  the  orator  was  going  through  his  exordium, 
they  held  their  breath  and  hid  their  faces,  mindful  of  the 
savage  attack  upon  him  and  New  England,  and  the  fearful 
odds  against  him,  her  champion ; — as  he  went  deeper  into  his 
speech,  they  felt  easier;  when  he  turned  Hayne's  flank  on 
Banquo's  ghost,  they  breathed  freer  and  deeper.  But  now,  as 
he  alluded  to  Massachusetts,  their  feelings  were  strained  to  the 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  2O/ 

highest  tension ;  and  when  the  orator,  concluding  his  encomium 
of  the  land  of  their  birth,  turned,  intentionally  or  otherwise, 
his  burning  eye  full  upon  them,  they  shed  tears  like  girls! 

"  No  one  who  was  not  present  can  understand  the  excitement 
of  the  scene.  No  one  who  was,  can  give  an  adequate  descrip- 
tion of  it.  No  word-painting  can  convey  the  deep,  intense 
enthusiasm,  the  reverential  attention,  of  that  vast  assembly, 
nor  limner  transfer  to  canvas  their  earnest,  eager,  awe-struck 
countenances.  Though  language  were  as  subtile  and  flexible 
as  thought,  it  still  would  be  impossible  to  represent  the  full 
idea  of  the  scene.  There  is  something  intangible  in  an  emo- 
tion, which  cannot  be  transferred.  The  nicer  shades  of  feeling 
elude  pursuit.  Every  description,  therefore,  of  the  occasion, 
seems  to  the  narrator  himself  most  tame,  spiritless,  unjust. 

"  The  exulting  rush  of  feeling  with  which  he  went  through 
the  peroration  threw  a  glow  over  his  countenance,  like  inspira- 
tion. Eye,  brow,  each  feature,  every  line  of  the  face,  seemed 
touched,  as  with  a  celestial  fire. 

"  The  swell  and  roll  of  his  voice  struck  upon  the  ears  of  the 
spell-bound  audience,  in  deep  and  melodious  cadence,  as  waves 
upon  the  shore  of  the  '  far-resounding '  sea.  The  Miltonic 
grandeur  of  his  words  was  the  fit  expression  of  his  thought, 
and  raised  his  hearers  up  to  his  theme.  His  voice,  exerted  to 
its  utmost  power,  penetrated  every  recess  or  corner  of  the 
Senate, — penetrated  even  the  ante-rooms  and  stairways,  as  he 
pronounced  in  deepest  tones  of  pathos  these  words  of  solemn 
significance :  '  When  my  eyes  shall  be  turned  to  behold,  for  the 
last  time,  the  sun  in  heaven,  may  I  not  see  him  shining  on  the 
broken  and  dishonored  fragments  of  a  once  glorious  Union ; 
on  States  dissevered,  discordant,  belligerent ;  on  a  land  rent 
with  civil  feuds,  or  drenched,  it  may  be,  in  fraternal  blood ! 
Let  their  last  feeble  and  lingering  glance  rather  behold  the 
gorgeous  ensign  of  the  republic,  now  known  and  honored 
throughout  the  earth,  still  full  high  advanced,  its  arms  and 
trophies  streaming  in  their  original  lustre,  not  a  stripe  erased 
or  polluted,  nor  a  single  star  obscured,  bearing  for  its  motto, 
no  such  miserable  interrogatory  as,  'What  is  all  this  worth?' 
nor  those  other  words  of  delusion  and  folly,  '  Liberty  first  and 
Union  afterwards  ' ;  but  everywhere,  spread  all  over  in  char- 
acters of  living  light,  blazing  on  all  its  ample  folds,  as  they 
float  over  the  sea  and  over  the  land,  and  in  every  wind  under 


208  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

the  whole  heavens,  that  other  sentiment,  dear  to  every  Ameri- 
can heart, — LIBERTY  AND  UNION,  NOW  AND  FOR  EVER,  ONE  AND 

INSEPARABLE ! 

After  having  spoken  about  three  hours  on  the  26th 
of  January,  Mr.  Webster  gave  way  for  an  adjourn- 
ment. He  resumed  and  concluded  the  speech  on  the 
following  day.  During  most  of  the  time  that  he  was 
speaking,  Mr.  Hayne  occupied  himself  in  taking 
notes,  and  rose  to  reply  at  the  conclusion  of '  Mr. 
Webster's  argument.  An  adjournment  was  pro- 
posed by  one  of  Mr.  Hayne's  friends,  but  he  wisely 
determined  to  terminate  all  that  he  intended  to  say 
on  the  subject  upon  the  spot.  He  accordingly  ad- 
dressed the  Senate  for  about  half  an  hour  upon  the 
constitutional  question  which  formed  the  most  im- 
portant portion  of  Mr.  Webster's  speech.  These  re- 
marks of  Mr.  Hayne  were,  in  the  newspaper  report, 
expanded  into  an  elaborate  argument,  which  occu- 
pied nineteen  pages  in  the  register  of  Congressional 
debates.  When  Mr.  Hayne  sat  down,  Mr.  Webster, 
in  turn,  rose  to  make  a  brief  rejoinder.  "  The  gen- 
tleman," said  he,  "  has  in  vain  attempted  to  recon- 
struct his  shattered  argument  "  ;  and  this  formida- 
ble exordium  was  followed  up  by  a  brief  restatement 
of  his  own  argument,  which,  for  condensation,  pre- 
cision, and  force,  may  be  referred  to  as  a  specimen  of 
parliamentary  logic  never  surpassed.  The  art  of 
reasoning  on  moral  questions  can  go  no  further. 

Thus  terminated  the  day's  great  work.  In  the 
evening  the  Senatorial  champions  met  at  a  friend's 
house,  and  exchanged  those  courteous  salutations 
which  mitigate  the  asperity  of  political  collision,  and 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  2OQ 

prevent  the  conflicts  of  party  from  embittering  social 
life. 

The  sensation  produced  by  the  great  debate  on 
those  who  heard  it  was  but  the  earnest  of  its  effect 
on  the  country  at  large.  The  length  of  Mr.  Web- 
ster's speech  did  not  prevent  its  being  copied  into 
the  leading  newspapers  throughout  the  country.  It 
was  the  universal  theme  of  conversation.  Letters  of 
acknowledgment  and  congratulation  from  the  most 
distinguished  individuals,  from  politicians  retired 
from  active  life,  from  entire  strangers,  from  persons 
not  sympathizing  with  all  Mr.  Webster's  views,  from 
distant  parts  of  the  Union,  were  addressed  to  him 
by  every  mail.  Immense  editions  of  the  speech  in  a 
pamphlet  form  were  called  for.  It  is  no  exaggera- 
tion to  say,  that  throughout  the  country  Mr.  Web- 
ster's speech  was  regarded,  not  only  as  a  brilliant 
and  successful  personal  defence  and  a  triumphant 
vindication  of  New  England,  but  as  a  complete  over- 
throw of  the  dangerous  constitutional  heresies  which 
had  menaced  the  stability  of  the  Union. 

In  this  light  it  was  looked  upon  by  a  large  num- 
ber of  the  most  distinguished  citizens  of  New  York, 
who  took  occasion  to  offer  Mr.  Webster  the  com- 
pliment of  a  public  dinner  the  following  winter. 
Circumstances  delayed  the  execution  of  their  pur- 
pose till  some  time  had  elapsed  from  the  delivery  of 
the  speech,  but  the  recollection  of  it  was  vivid,  and 
it  was  referred  to  by  Chancellor  Kent,  the  president 
of  the  day,  as  the  service  especially  demanding  the 
grateful  recognition  of  the  country.  After  alluding 
to  the  debate  on  Foot's  resolution  and  to  the  char- 

A.  B.,  VOL.  VI. —  II 


2IO  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

acter  of  Mr.  Webster's  speech,  the  venerable  Chan- 
cellor added : — 

"  The  consequences  of  that  discussion  have  been  extremely 
beneficial.  It  turned  the  attention  of  the  public  to  the  great 
doctrines  of  national  rights  and  national  union.  Constitutional 
law  ceased  to  remain  wrapped  up  in  the  breasts,  and  taught 
only  by  the  responses,  of  the  living  oracles  of  the  law.  Soc- 
rates was  said  to  have  drawn  down  philosophy  from  the  skies, 
and  scattered  it  among  the  schools.  It  may  with  equal  truth 
be  said  that  constitutional  law,  by  means  of  those  senatorial 
discussions  and  the  master  genius  that  guided  them,  was 
rescued  from  the  archives  of  our  tribunals  and  the  libraries  of 
our  lawyers,  and  placed  under  the  eye  and  submitted  to  the 
judgment  of  the  American  people.  Their  verdict  is  with  us, 
and  from  it  there  lies  no  appeal."  * 

With  respect  to  Mr.  Foot's  resolution  it  may  be 
observed,  that  it  continued  before  the  Senate  a  long 
time,  a  standing  subject  of  discussion.  At  length, 
on  the  2  ist  of  May,  a  motion  for  indefinite  postpone- 
ment, submitted  by  Mr.  Webster  at  the  close  of  his 
first  speech,  prevailed,  and  thus  the  whole  discussion 
ended. 


*  Chancellor  Kent's  remarks  are  given  entire  in  the  intro- 
duction to  "  Mr.  Webster's  Speech  at  the  New  York  Dinner,'1 
vol.  i.  p.  194.. 


CHAPTER  VII 

President  Jackson's  Administrations. — Speedy  Discord  among 
the  Parties. — Mr.  Webster's  Relations  to  the  Administration. 
— Veto  of  the  Bank. — Rise  and  Progress  of  Nullification  in 
South  Carolina. — The  Force  Bill. — Mr.  Madison's  Letter  on 
Secession. — Removal  of  the  Deposits. — Mr.  Van  Buren's 
Election. — Financial  Crisis  and  Extra  Session  of  Congress. 
— Government  Plan  of  Finance. — Mr.  Webster's  Visit  to 
Europe  and  distinguished  Reception. — Presidential  Canvass 
of  1840. — Election  of  General  Harrison. 

IT  would  require  a  volume  of  ample  dimensions  to 
relate  the  history  of  Mr.  Webster's  Senatorial  career 
from  this  time  till  the  accession  of  General  Harrison 
to  the  Presidency,  in  1841.  In  this  interval  the  gov- 
ernment was  administered  for  two  successive  terms 
by  General  Jackson,  and  for  a  single  term  by  Mr. 
Van  Buren.  It  was  a  period  filled  with  incidents  of 
great  importance  in  various  departments  of  the  gov- 
ernment, often  of  a  startling  character  at  the  time, 
and  not  less  frequently  exerting  a  permanent  in- 
fluence on  the  condition  of  the  country.  It  may  be 
stated  as  the  general  characteristic  of  the  political 
tendencies  of  this  period,  that  there  was  a  decided 
weakening  of  respect  for  constitutional  restraint. 
Vague  ideas  of  executive  discretion  prevailed  on  the 
one  hand  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Constitution, 
and  of  popular  sovereignty  on  the  other,  as  repre- 
sented by  a  President  elevated  to  office  by  overwhelm- 
ing majorities  of  the  people.  The  expulsion  of  the 

211 


212  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

Indian  tribes  from  the  Southern  States,  in  violation 
of  the  faith  of  treaties  and  in  open  disregard  of  the 
opinion  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
as  to  their  obligation ;  the  claim  of  a  right  on  the  part 
of  a  State  to  nullify  an  act  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment; the  violation  of  the  charter  of  the  bank,  and 
the  Presidential  veto  of  the  act  of  Congress  rechar- 
tering  it;  the  deposit  of  the  public  money  in  the 
selected  State  banks  with  a  view  to  its  safekeeping 
and  for  the  greater  encouragement  of  trade  by  the 
loan  of  the  public  funds;  the  explosion  of  this  sys- 
tem, and  the  adoption  of  one  directly  opposed  to  it, 
which  rejected  wholly  the  aid  of  the  banks  and  de- 
nied the  right  of  the  government  to  employ  the  pub- 
lic funds  for  any  but  fiscal  purposes;  the  executive 
menaces  of  war  against  France;  the  unsuccessful 
attempt  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  administration  to  carry 
on  the  government  upon  General  Jackson's  system; 
the  panic  of  1837,  succeeded  by  the  general  uprising 
of  the  country  and  the  universal  demand  -for  a 
change  of  men  and  measures, — these  are  the  leading 
incidents  in  the  chronicle  of  the  period  in  question. 
On  some  of  them  Mr.  Webster  put  forth  all  his 
power.  The  questions  pertaining  to  the  construction 
of  the  Constitution,  to  the  bank,  to  the  veto  power, 
to  the  currency,  to  the  constitutionality  of  the  tariff, 
to  the  right  of  removal  from  office,  and  to  the 
finances,  were  discussed  in  almost  every  conceivable 
form,  and  with  every  variety  of  argument  and 
illustration. 

It  has  already  been  observed  that  General  Jackson 
was  brought  into  power  by  a  somewhat  ill-compacted 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  213 

alliance  between  his  original  friends  and  a  portion  of 
the  friends  of  the  other  candidates  of  1824.  As  far 
as  Mr.  Calhoun  and  his  followers  were  concerned, 
the  cordiality  of  the  union  was  gone  before  the  in- 
auguration of  the  new  President.  There  was  not 
only  on  the  list  of  the  cabinet  to  be  appointed  no 
adequate  representative  of  the  Vice-President,  but 
his  rival  candidate  for  the  succession  (Mr.  Van 
Buren)  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  administra- 
tion. There  is  reason  to  suppose  that  General  Jack- 
son, who,  though  his  policy  tended  greatly  to  impair 
the  strength  of  the  Union,  was  in  feeling  a  warm 
Unionist,  witnessed  with  no  dissatisfaction  the  re- 
sult of  the  great  constitutional  debate  and  its  in- 
fluence upon  the  country. 

In  the  Twenty-second  Congress  (the  second  of 
General  Jackson's  administration)  the  bank  question 
became  prominent.  General  Jackson  had  in  his  first 
message  called  the  attention  of  Congress  to  the  sub- 
ject of  the  bank.  No  doubt  of  its  constitutionality 
was  then  intimated  by  him.  In  the  course  of  a  year 
or  two  an  attempt  was  made,  on  the  part  of  the 
Executive,  to  control  the  appointment  of  the  officers 
of  one  of  the  Eastern  branches.  This  attempt  was 
resisted  by  the  bank,  and  from  that  time  forward  a 
state  of  warfare,  at  first  partially  disguised,  but 
finally  open  and  flagrant,  existed  between  the  gov- 
ernment and  the  directors  of  the  institution.  In  the 
first  session  of  the  Twenty-second  Congress  (1831- 
32),  a  bill  was  introduced  by  Mr.  Dallas,  and  passed 
the  two  houses,  to  renew  the  charter  of  the  bank. 
This  measure  was  supported  by  Mr,  Webster,  on  the 


214  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

ground  of  the  importance  of  a  national  bank  to  the 
fiscal  operations  of  the  government,  and  to  the  cur- 
rency, exchange,  and  general  business  of  the  coun- 
try. No  specific  complaints  of  mismanagement  had 
then  been  made,  nor  were  any  abuses  alleged  to  exist. 
The  bank  was,  almost  without  exception,  popular  at 
that  time  with  the  business  interests  of  the  coun- 
try, and  particularly  at  the  South  and  West.  Its 
credit  in  England  was  solid;  its  bills  and  drafts  on 
London  took  the  place  of  specie  for  remittances  to 
India  and  China.  Its  convenience  and  usefulness 
were  recognized  in  the  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  (Mr.  Lane),  at  the  same  time  that  its  con- 
stitutionality was  questioned  and  its  existence  threat- 
ened by  the  President.  So  completely,  however,  was 
the  policy  of  General  Jackson's  administration  the 
impulse  of  his  own  feelings  and  individual  impres- 
sions, and  so  imperfectly  had  these  been  disclosed 
on  the  present  occasion,  that  the  fate  of  the  bill  for 
rechartering  the  bank  was  a  matter  of  uncertainty 
on  the  part  both  of  adherents  and  opponents.  Many 
persons  on  both  sides  of  the  two  houses  were  taken 
by  surprise  by  the  veto. 

But  events  of  a  different  complexion  soon  oc- 
curred, and  gave  a  new  direction  to  the  thoughts  of 
men  throughout  the  country.  The  opposition  of 
South  Carolina  to  the  protective  policy  had  been 
pushed  to  a  point  of  excitement  at  which  it  was  be- 
yond the  control  of  party  leaders.  Although,  as  we 
have  seen,  that  policy  had  in  1816  been  established 
by  the  aid  of  distinguished  statesmen  of  South  Caro- 
lina, who  saw  in  the  success  of  American  cotton 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  21$ 

manufactures  a  new  market  for  the  staple  of  the 
South,  in  which  it  would  take  the  place  of  the  cotton 
of  India,  the  protective  policy  at  a  later  period  had 
come  to  be  generally  considered  unconstitutional  at 
the  South.  A  change  of  opinion  somewhat  similar 
had  taken  place  in  New  England,  which  had  been 
originally  opposed  to  this  policy,  as  adverse  to  the 
commercial  and  navigating  interests.  Experience 
gradually  showed  that  such  was  not  the  case.  The 
enactment  of  the  law  of  1824  was  considered  as  es- 
tablishing the  general  principle  of  protection  as  the 
policy  of  the  country.  It  was  known  to  be  the  policy 
of  the  great  central  States.  The  capital  of  the  North 
was  to  some  extent  forced  into  new  channels.  Some 
branches  of  manufactures  flourished,  as  skill  was 
acquired  and  improvements  in  machinery  made. 
The  coarse  cotton  fabrics  which  had  enjoyed  the  pro- 
tection of  the  minimum  duty  prospered,  manufactur- 
ing villages  grew  up,  the  price  of  the  fabric  fell,  and 
as  competition  increased  the  tariff  did  little  more 
than  protect  the  domestic  manufacturer  from  fraudu- 
lent invoices  and  the  fluctuation  of  foreign  markets. 
Thus  all  parties  were  benefited,  not  excepting  the 
South,  which  gained  a  new  customer  for  her  staple. 
These  changes  in  the  condition  of  things  led  Mr. 
Webster,  as  we  have  remarked  in  a  former  chapter, 
to  modify  his  course  on  the  tariff  question. 

Unfortunately,  no  manufactures  had  been  estab- 
lished at  the  South.  The  vast  quantities  of  new 
and  fertile  land  opened  in  the  west  of  Georgia,  in 
Alabama,  and  Mississippi,  injured  the  value  of  the 
old  and  partly  exhausted  lands  of  the  Atlantic  States, 


2l6  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

Labor  was  drawn  off  to  found  plantations  in  the  new 
States,  and  the  injurious  consequences  were  ascribed 
to  the  tariff.  Considerations  of  a  political  nature 
had  entirely  changed  the  tolerant  feeling  which,  up 
to  a  certain  period,  had  been  shown  by  one  class  of 
Southern  politicians  toward  the  protective  policy. 
With  the  exception  of  Louisiana,  and  one  or  two 
votes  in  Virginia,  the  whole  South  was  united 
against  the  tariff.  South  Carolina  had  suffered  most 
by  the  inability  of  her  worn  lands  to  sustain  the  com- 
petition with  the  lands  of  the  Yazoo  and  the  Red 
River,  and  to  her  the  most  active  opposition,  under 
the  lead  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  was  confined.  The  mod- 
ern doctrine  of  nullification  was  broached  by  her  ac- 
complished statesmen,  and  an  unsuccessful  attempt 
made  to  deduce  it  from  the  Virginia  resolutions  of 
1798.  Mr.  Madison,  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the 
writer  of  these  pages,*  in  August,  1830,  firmly  re- 
sisted this  attempt ;  and,  as  a  theory,  the  whole  doc- 
trine of  nullification  was  overthrown  by  Mr.  Web- 
ster, in  his  speech  of  the  26th  of  January,  1830.  But 
public  sentiment  had  gone  too  far  in  South  Carolina 
to  be  checked;  party  leaders  were  too  deeply  com- 
mitted to  retreat;  and  at  the  close  of  1832  the  ordi- 
nance of  nullification  was  adopted  by  a  State  con- 
vention. 

This  decisive  act  roused  the  hero  of  New  Orleans 
from  the  vigilant  repose  with  which  he  had  watched 
the  coming  storm.  Confidential  orders  to  hold  them- 
selves in  readiness  for  active  service  were  sent  in 
every  direction  to  the  officers  of  the  army  and  the 

*  North  American  Review,  vol.  xxxi,  p.  537. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER 

navy.  Prudent  and  resolute  men  were  quietly  sta- 
tioned at  the  proper  posts.  Arms  and  munitions  in 
abundance  were  held  in  readiness,  and  a  chain  of 
expresses  in  advance  of  the  mail  was  established 
from  the  Capitol  to  Charleston.  These  preparations 
made,  the  Presidential  proclamation  of  the  nth  of 
December,  1832,  was  issued.  It  was  written  by  Mr. 
Edward  Livingston,  then  Secretary  of  State,  from 
notes  furnished  by  General  Jackson  himself;  but 
there  is  not  an  idea  of  importance  in  it  which  may 
not  be  found  in  Mr.  Webster's  speech  on  Foot's 
resolution. 

The  proclamation  of  the  President  was  met  by 
the  counter-proclamation  of  Governor  Hayne;  and 
the  State  of  South  Carolina  proceeded  to  pass  laws 
for  carrying  the  ordinance  of  nullification  into  effect, 
and  for  putting  the  State  into  a  condition  to  carry  on 
war  with  the  General  Government.  In  this  posture 
of  affairs  the  President  of  the  United  States  laid 
the  matter  before  Congress,  in  his  message  of  the 
1 6th  of  January,  1833,  and  the  bill  "  further  to  pro- 
vide for  the  collection  of  duties  on  imports  "  was  in- 
troduced into  the  Senate,  in  pursuance  of  his  recom- 
mendations. Mr.  Calhoun  was  at  this  time  a  mem- 
ber of  that  body,  having  been  chosen  to  succeed  Gov- 
ernor Hayne,  and  having  of  course  resigned  the 
office  of  Vice-President.  Thus  called,  for  the  first 
time,  to  sustain  in  person  before  the  Senate  and  the 
country  the  policy  of  nullification,  which  had  been 
adopted  by  South  Carolina  mainly  under  his  influ- 
ence, and  which  was  now  threatening  the  Union,  it 
hardly  need  be  said  that  he  exerted  all  his  ability, 


2l8  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

and  put  forth  all  his  resources,  in  defence  of  the 
doctrine  which  had  brought  his  State  to  the  verge 
of  revolution.  It  is  but  justice  to  add,  that  he  met 
the  occasion  with  equal  courage  and  vigor.  The 
bill  "  to  make  further  provision  for  the  collection  of 
the  revenue,"  or  "  Force  Bill,"  as  it  was  called,  was 
reported  by  Mr.  Wilkins  from  the  Committee  on  the 
Judiciary  on  the  2ist  of  January,  and  on  the  follow- 
ing day  Mr.  Calhoun  moved  a  series  of  resolutions, 
affirming  the  right  of  a  State  to  annul,  as  far  as  her 
citizens  are  concerned,  any  act  of  Congress  which 
she  may  deem  oppressive  and  unconstitutional.  On 
the  1 5th  and  i6th  of  February,  he  spoke  at  length  in 
opposition  to  the  bill,  and  in  development  and  sup- 
port of  his  resolutions.  On  this  occasion  the  doc- 
trine of  nullification  was  sustained  by  him  with  far 
greater  ability  than  it  had  been  by  General  Hayne, 
and  in  a  speech  which  we  believe  is  regarded  as  Mr. 
Calhoun's  most  powerful  effort.  In  closing  his 
speech,  Mr.  Calhoun  challenged  the  opponents  of  his 
doctrines  to  disprove  them,  and  warned  them,  in  the 
concluding  sentence,  that  the  principles  they  might 
advance  would  be  subjected  to  the  revision  of 
posterity. 

Mr.  Webster,  before  Mr.  Calhoun  had  resumed 
his  seat,  or  he  had  risen  from  his  own,  accepted  the 
challenge,  and  commenced  his  reply.  He  began  to 
speak  as  he  was  rising,  and  continued  to  address  the 
Senate  with  great  force  and  effect,  for  about  two 
hours.  The  Senate  then  took  a  recess,  and  after  it 
came  together  Mr.  Webster  spoke  again,  from  five 
o'clock  till  eight  in  the  evening,  The  speech  was 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  2  19 

more  purely  a  constitutional  argument  than  that  of 
the  26th  of  January,  1830.  It  was  mainly  devoted 
to  an  examination  of  Mr.  Calhoun's  resolutions ;  to  a 
review  of  the  adoption  and  ratification  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  by  way  of  elucidating 
the  question  whether  the  system  provided  by  the 
Constitution  is  a  government  of  the  people  or  a  com- 
pact between  the  States;  and  to  a  discussion  of  the 
constitutionality  of  the  tariff.  The  Senate-chamber 
was  thronged  to  its  utmost  capacity,  both  before  and 
after  the  recess,  although  the  streets  of  Washington, 
owing  to  the  state  of  the  weather  at  the  time,  were 
nearly  impassable. 

The  opinion  entertained  of  this  speech  by  the  in- 
dividual who,  of  all  the  people  of  America,  was  the 
best  qualified  to  estimate  its  value,  may  be  seen  from 
the  following  letter  of  Mr.  Madison,  which  has  never 
before  been  published : 

"  Montpellier,  March  i^th,  1833. 

"  MY  DEAR  SIR  : — I  return  my  thanks  for  the  copy  of  your 
late  very  powerful  speech  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 
It  crushes  '  nullification,'  and  must  hasten  an  abandonment  of 
'  secession.'  But  this  dodges  the  blow,  by  confounding  the 
claim  to  secede  at  will  with  the  right  of  seceding  from  intol- 
erable oppression.  The  former  answers  itself,  being  a  violation 
without  cause  of  a  faith  solemnly  pledged.  The  latter  is  an- 
other name  only  for  revolution,  about  which  there  is  no  theo- 
retic controversy.  Its  double  aspect,  nevertheless,  with  the 
countenance  received  from  certain  quarters,  is  giving  it  a  popu- 
lar currency  here,  which  may  influence  the  approaching  elec- 
tions both  for  Congress  and  for  the  State  legislature.  It  has 
gained  some  advantage  also  by  mixing  itself  with  the  question, 
whether  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  formed  by 
the  people  or  by  the  States,  now  under  a  theoretic  discussion 
by  animated  partisans. 


22O  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

"  It  is  fortunate  when  disputed  theories  can  be  decided  by 
undisputed  facts,  and  here  the  undisputed  fact  is,  that  the  Con- 
stitution was  made  by  the  people,  but  as  embodied  into  the 
several  States  who  were  parties  to  it,  and  therefore  made  by 
the  States  in  their  highest  authoritative  capacity.  They  might, 
by  the  same  authority  and  by  the  same  process,  have  converted 
the  confederacy  into  a  mere  league  or  treaty,  or  continued  it 
with  enlarged  or  abridged  powers ;  or  have  embodied  the  people 
of  their  respective  States  into  one  people,  nation,  or  sover- 
eignty ;  or,  as  they  did,  by  a  mixed  form,  make  them  one  people, 
nation,  or  sovereignty  for  certain  purposes,  and  not  so  for 
others. 

"  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  being  established  by 
a  competent  authority,  by  that  of  the  sovereign  people  of  the 
several  States  who  were  parties  to  it,  it  remains  only  to  inquire 
what  the  Constitution  is ;  and  here  it  speaks  for  itself.  It 
organizes  a  government  into  the  usual  legislative,  executive, 
and  judiciary  departments;  invests  it  with  specified  powers, 
leaving  others  to  the  parties  to  the  Constitution.  It  makes 
the  government  like  other  governments  to  operate  directly  on 
the  people;  places  at  its  command  the  needful  physical  means 
of  executing  its  powers;  and  finally  proclaims  its  supremacy, 
and  that  of  the  laws  made  in  pursuance  of  it,  over  the  consti- 
tutions and  laws  of  the  States,  the  powers  of  the  government 
being  exercised,  as  in  other  elective  and  responsible  govern- 
ments, under  the  control  of  its  constituents,  the  people  and  the 
legislatures  of  the  States,  and  subject  to  the  revolutionary 
rights  of  the  people,  in  extreme  cases. 

"  Such  is  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  de  jure  and 
de  facto,  and  the  name,  whatever  it  be,  that  may  be  given  to  it 
can  make  it  nothing  more  or  less  than  what  it  is. 

"  Pardon  this  hasty  effusion,  which,  whether  precisely  ac- 
cording or  not  with  your  ideas,  presents,  I  am  aware,  none  that 
will  be  new  to  you. 

"  With  great  esteem  and  cordial  salutations, 

"  JAMES  MADISON. 

"  MR.  WEBSTER." 

It  may  be  observed,  in  reference  to  the  closing 
remark  in  the  above  important  letter,  that  the  view 
which  it  presents  of  the  nature  of  the  government 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  221 

established  by  the  Constitution  is  precisely  that  taken 
by  Mr.  Webster  in  the  various  speeches  in  which 
the  subject  is  discussed  by  him. 

The  President  of  the  United  States  felt  the  impor- 
tance of  Mr.  Webster's  aid  in  the  great  constitutional 
struggle  of  the  session.  There  were  men  of  great 
ability  enlisted  in  support  of  his  administration, 
Messrs.  Forsyth,  Grundy,  Dallas,  Rives,  and  others, 
but  no  one  competent  to  assume  the  post  of  antag- 
onist to  the  great  Southern  leader.  The  general 
political  position  of  Mr.  Webster  made  it  in  no  de- 
gree his  duty  to  sustain  the  administration  in  any 
party  measure,  but  the  reverse.  But  his  whole 
course  as  a  public  man,  and  all  his  principles,  forbade 
him  to  act  from  .party  motives  in  a  great  crisis  of  the 
country's  fortunes.  The  administration  was  now 
engaged  in  a  fearful  struggle  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  and  the  integrity  of  the  Constitution. 
The  doctrines  of  the  proclamation  were  the  doctrines 
of  his  speech  on  Foot's  resolution  almost  to  the 
words.  He  would  have  been  unjust  to  his  most 
cherished  principles  and  his  views  of  public  duty  had 
he  not  come  to  the  rescue,  not  of  the  administration, 
but  of  the  country,  in  this  hour  of  her  peril.  His  aid 
was  personally  solicited  in  the  great  debate  on  the 
"  Force  Bill  "  by  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  but  it  was 
not  granted  till  the  bill  had  undergone  important 
amendments  suggested  by  him,  when  it  was  given 
cordially,  without  stint  and  without  condition.* 

*  It  is  not  wholly  unworthy  of  remark  in  this  place,  as  illus- 
trating the  dependence  on  Mr.  Webster's  aid  which  was  felt 
at  the  White  House,  that,  on  the  day  of  his  reply  to  Mr.  Cal- 
houn,  the  President's  carriage  was  sent  to  Mr.  Webster's  lodg- 


222  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

In  the  recess  of  Congress  in  the  year  1833,  Mr. 
Webster  made  a  short  journey  to  the  Middle  States 
and  the  West.  He  was  everywhere  the  object  of  the 
most  distinguished  and  respectful  attentions.  Public 
receptions  took  place  at  Buffalo  and  Pittsburg, 
where,  under  the  auspices  of  committees  of  the  high- 
est respectability,  he  addressed  immense  assem- 
blages convened  without  distinction  of  party.  Invi- 
tations to  similar  meetings  reached  him  from  many 
quarters,  which  he  was  obliged  by  want  of  leisure  to 
decline. 

The  friendly  relations  into  which  Mr.  Webster 
had  been  drawn  with  the  President,  and  the  enthu- 
siastic welcome  given  to  the  President  on  his  tour 
to  the  East,  in  the  summer  of  1833,  awakened  jeal- 
ousy in  certain  quarters.  It  was  believed  at  the  time, 
by  well-informed  persons,  that  among  the  motives 
which  actuated  some  persons  in  General  Jackson's 
confidence,  in  fanning  his  hostility  to  the  Bank  of 
'the  United  States,  was  that  of  bringing  forward  a 
question  of  great  interest  both  to  the  public  and  the 
President,  on  which  he  would  be  sure  to  encounter 
Mr.  Webster's  opposition. 

Such  a  subject  was  the  removal  of  the  deposits  of 
the  public  moneys  from  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  a  measure  productive  of  more  immediate 
distress  to  the  community  and  a  larger  train  of  evil 
consequences  than  perhaps  any  similar  measure  in 
our  political  history.  It  was  finally  determined  upon 

ings,  as  was  supposed  with  a  message  borne  by  the  President's 
private  secretary.  Happening  to  be  still  at  the  door  when  Mr. 
Webster  was  about  to  go  to  the  Capitol,  it  conveyed  him  to  the 
Senate-chamber. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  223 

while  the  President  was  on  his  Northern  tour,  in  the 
summer  of  1833,  receiving  in  every  part  of  New 
England  those  warm  demonstrations  of  respect 
which  his  patriotic  course  in  the  great  nullification 
struggle  had  inspired.  It  is  proper  to  state,  that  up 
to  this  period,  in  the  judgment  of  more  than  one 
committee  of  Congress  appointed  to  investigate  its 
affairs,  in  the  opinion  of  both  houses  of  Congress, 
who  in  1832  had  passed  a  bill  to  renew  the  charter, 
and  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  which  had  re- 
solved that  the  deposits  were  safe  in  its  custody,  the 
affairs  of  the  bank  had  been  conducted  with  pru- 
dence, integrity,  and  remarkable  skill.  It  was  not 
the  least  evil  consequence  of  the  warfare  waged  upon 
the  bank,  that  it  was  finally  drawn  into  a  position 
(though  not  till  its  Congressional  charter  expired, 
and  it  accepted  very  unwisely  a  charter  as  a  State 
institution)  in  which,  in  its  desperate  struggle  to 
sustain  itself,  it  finally  forfeited  the  confidence  of  its 
friends  and  the  public,  and  made  a  deplorable  and 
shameful  shipwreck  at  once  of  its  interests  and 
honor,  involving  hundreds,  at  home  and  abroad,  in 
its  own  deserved  ruin. 

The  second  administration  of  General  Jackson, 
which  commenced  in  March,  1833,  was  principally 
employed  in  carrying  on  this  war  against  the  bank, 
and  in  the  effort  to  build  up  the  league  of  the  asso- 
ciated banks  into  an  efficient  fiscal  agent  of  the  gov- 
ernment. The  dangerous  crisis  of  affairs  in  South 
Carolina  had,  for  the  time,  passed.  The  passage  of 
the  "  Force  Bill  "  had  vindicated  the  authority  of 
the  Constitution  as  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  and 


224  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

had  armed  the  President  with  the  needed  powers  to 
maintain  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Compromise 
Bill  of  Mr.  Clay,  providing  for  the  gradual  reduc- 
tion of  all  duties  to  one  uniform  rate  of  twenty  per 
cent.,  was  accepted  by  Mr.  Calhoun  and  his  friends 
as  a  practical  concession,  and  furnished  them  the 
opportunity  of  making  what  they  deemed  a  not  dis- 
creditable retreat  from  the  attitude  of  military  re- 
sistance in  which  they  had  placed  the  State.  Re- 
garding this  bill  in  the  light  of  a  concession  to  un- 
constitutional menace,  as  tending  to  the  eventual 
prostration  of  all  the  interests  which  had  grown  up 
under  the  system  so  long  pursued  by  the  govern- 
ment, Mr.  Webster  felt  himself  compelled  to  with- 
hold from  it  his  support.  He  rejoiced,  however,  in 
the  concurrence  of  events  which  had  averted  the 
dread  appeal  to  arms  that  seemed  at  one  time  una- 
voidable. 

It  would  occupy  an  unreasonable  space  to  dwell 
upon  every  public  measure  before  Congress  at  this 
session ;  but  there  is  one  which  cannot  with  propriety 
be  passed  over,  as  it  drew  forth  from  Mr.  Webster 
an  argument  not  inferior  to  his  speech  on  the  "  Force 
Bill."  A  resolution,  originally  moved  by  Mr.  Clay, 
expressing  disapprobation  of  the  removal  of  the  de- 
posits from  the  bank,  was,  after  material  amend- 
ments, adopted  by  the  Senate.  This  resolution  led 
to  a  formal  protest  from  the  President,  communi- 
cated to  the  Senate  on  the  I5th  of  April,  1834. 
Looking  upon  the  resolution  referred  to  as  one  of 
expediency,  it  is  probable  that  Mr.  Webster  did  not 
warmly  favor,  though,  with  Mr.  Calhoun,  he  con- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  225 

curred  in,  its  passage.  The  protest  of  the  President, 
however,  placed  the  subject  on  new  ground.  Mr. 
Webster  considered  it  as  an  encroachment  on  the 
constitutional  rights  of  the  Senate,  and  as  a  denial 
to  that  body  of  the  freedom  of  action  which  the 
executive  claimed  so  earnestly  for  itself.  He  ac- 
cordingly addressed  the  Senate  on  the  7th  of  May, 
in  a  speech  of  the  highest  ability,  in  which  the  doc- 
trines of  the  protest  were  subjected  to  the  severest 
scrutiny,  and  the  constitutional  rights  and  duties  of 
the  Senate  asserted  with  a  force  and  spirit  worthy 
of  the  important  position  occupied  by  that  body  in 
the  frame  of  the  government.  This  speech  will  be 
ever  memorable  for  that  sublime  passage  on  the  ex- 
tent of  the  power  of  England,  which  will  be  quoted 
with  admiration  wherever  our  language  is  spoken 
and  while  England  retains  her  place  in  the  family  of 
nations. 

At  the  same  session  of  Congress,  Mr.  Webster 
spoke  frequently  on  the  presentation  of  memorials, 
which  were  poured  in  upon  him  from  every  part  of 
the  country,  in  reference  to  the  existing  distress. 
These  speeches  were  of  necessity  made,  in  almost 
every  case,  with  little  or  no  preparation,  but  many 
of  them  contain  expositions  of  the  operation  of  the 
financial  experiment  instituted  by  General  Jackson, 
which  will  retain  a  permanent  value  in  our  political 
history.  Some  of  them  are  marked  by  bursts  of  the 
highest  eloquence.  The  entire  subject  of  the  cur- 
rency was  also  treated  with  great  ability  by  Mr. 
Webster,  in  a  report  made  at  this  session  of  Con- 
gress from  the  committee  of  the  Senate  on  finance, 
A.  B.,  VOL.  vi. — 15 


226  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

of  which  he  was  chairman.  Few  documents  more 
skilfully  digested  or  powerfully  reasoned  proceeded 
from  his  pen. 

The  same  topics  substantially  occupied  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Senate  at  the  Twenty-fourth  as  at  the 
Twenty-third  Congress.  The  principal  subjects  dis- 
cussed pertained  to  the  currency.  The  specie  circular 
and  the  distribution  of  the  surplus  revenue  were 
among  the  prominent  measures.  A  motion  made  in 
the  Senate  to  expunge  from  its  records  the  resolution 
of  March,  1834,  by  which  the  Senate  expressed  its 
disapprobation  of  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  drew 
forth  from  Mr.  Webster,  on  behalf  of  himself  and 
his  colleague,  a  protest  against  that  measure,  of  sin- 
gular earnestness  and  power.  Committed  to  writ- 
ing, and  read  with  unusual  solemnity,  it  produced 
upon  the  Senate  an  effect  which  is  still  remembered 
and  spoken  of.  Every  word  in  it  is  weighed  as  in  a 
balance. 

The  administration  of  General  Jackson  was  draw- 
ing to  a  close;  Mr.  Van  Buren  had  been  chosen  to 
succeed  him  in  November,  1836.  In  the  month  of 
February  following,  upon  an  invitation  from  a  large 
committee  of  merchants,  professional  men,  and  citi- 
zens generally  of  New  York,  given  some  months  pre- 
vious, Mr.  Webster  attended  one  of  those  great  pub- 
lic meetings  which  he  has  been  so  often  called  to 
address.  His  speech  on  this  occasion,  delivered  in 
Niblo's  Saloon  on  the  I5th  of  March,  1837,  is  one 
of  the  most  important  of  his  utterances  of  General 
Jackson's  policy,  and  closed  with  a  prediction  of  the 
impending  catastrophe.  After  the  adjournment  of 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  22 / 

Congress,  Mr.  Webster  made  a  hasty  tour  to  the 
West,  in  the  course  of  which  he  addressed  large  pub- 
lic meetings  at  Wheeling  in  Virginia,  at  Madison  in 
Indiana,  and  at  other  places.  The  coincidence  of 
passing  events  with  all  his  anticipations  of  the  cer- 
tain effects  of  the  administration  policy  gave  pecul- 
iar force  to  these  addresses.  It  is  to  be  regretted 
that  these  speeches  appear  from  inadequate  reports ; 
of  some  of  the  speeches  made  by  him  on  this  tour, 
no  notes  were  taken. 

Such  was  the  financial  embarrassment  induced  by 
the  explosion  of  the  system  of  the  late  administra- 
tion, that  President  Van  Buren's  first  official  act  was 
a  proclamation  for  an  extra  session  of  Congress,  to 
be  held  in  September,  1837.  At  this  session  the  new 
government  plan  of  finance,  usually  called  "  the 
Sub-treasury  system,"  was  brought  forward.  It  was 
the  opinion  of  Mr.  Webster,  that  the  rigid  enforce- 
ment by  the  government  of  a  system  of  specie  pay- 
ments in  all  its  public  receipts  and  expenditures  was 
an  actual  impossibility,  in  the  present  state  of  things 
in  this  country  and  the  other  commercial  countries 
of  the  civilized  world.  The  attempt  to  reject  alto- 
gether the  aid  of  convertible  paper,  of  bills  of  ex- 
change, of  drafts,  and  other  substitutes  for  the  use 
and  transportation  of  the  precious  metals,  must  fail 
in  practice  in  a  commercial  country,  where  the  great 
mass  of  the  business  affairs  of  the  community  are 
transacted  with  their  aid.  If  the  attempt  could  be 
forced  through,  it  would  be  like  an  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  government  to  make  use  of  the  ancient 
modes  of  travel  and  conveyance,  while  every  citizen 


228  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

in  his  private  affairs  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  steam 
navigation  and  railways.  Mr.  Webster  accordingly 
opposed  the  sub-treasury  project  from  its  inception; 
and  it  failed  to  become  a  law  at  the  extra  session  of 
Congress  in  1837. 

During  the  debate  one  of  Mr.  Calhoun's  speeches 
called  upon  Mr.  Webster  for  a  rejoinder,  which  was 
made  by  him  on  the  I2th  of  March.  It  is  the  most 
elaborate  and  effective  of  Mr.  Webster's  speeches  on 
the  subject  of  the  currency.  The  constitutional  right 
of  the  General  Government  to  employ  a  convertible 
paper  in  its  fiscal  transactions,  and  to  make  use  of 
banks  in  the  custody  and  transmission  of  its  funds, 
is  argued  in  this  speech  with  much  ability,  from  the 
necessity  of  the  case,  from  the  contemporaneous  ex- 
positions of  the  Constitution,  from  the  practice  of 
the  government  under  every  administration,  from 
the  expressed  views  and  opinions  of  every  President 
of  the  United  States,  including  General  Jackson, 
and  from  the  often-declared  opinions  of  all  the  lead- 
ing statesmen  of  the  country,  not  excepting  Mr. 
Calhoun  himself,  whose  course  in  this  respect  was 
reviewed  by  Mr.  Webster  somewhat  at  length,  and 
in  such  a  way  as  unavoidably  to  suggest  the  idea  of 
inconsistency,  although  no  such  charge  was  made. 

To  some  portions  of  this  speech  Mr.  Calhoun  re- 
plied a  few  weeks  afterward,  and  sought  to  ward 
off  the  comments  upon  his  own  course  in  reference 
to  this  class  of  questions,  by  some  severe  strictures 
on  that  of  Mr.  Webster,  which  drew  from  that  gen- 
tleman a  prompt  and  spirited  rejoinder. 

This  is  the  only  occasion  during  the  long  political 
lives  of  these  distinguished  statesmen,  begun  nearly 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  229 

at  the  same  time,  and  continued  through  a  Congres- 
sional career  which  brought  them  of  necessity  much 
in  contact  with  each  other,  in  which  there  was  any 
approach  to  personality  in  their  keen  encounters.  In 
fact,  of  all  the  highly  eminent  public  men  of  the  day, 
they  are  the  individuals  who  have  made  the  least 
use  of  the  favorite  weapon  of  ordinary  politicians, 
personality  toward  opponents.  On  the  decease  of 
Mr.  Calhoun  at  Washington,  in  the  spring  of  1850, 
their  uninterrupted  friendly  relations  were  alluded  to 
by  Mr.  Webster  in  cordial  and  affecting  terms.  He 
regarded  Mr.  Calhoun  as  decidedly  the  ablest  of  the 
public  men  to  whom  he  had  been  opposed  in  the 
course  of  his  political  life. 

These  kindly  feelings  on  Mr.  Webster's  part  were 
fully  reciprocated  by  Mr.  Calhoun.  He  is  known  to 
have  declared  on  his  death-bed,  that,  of  all  the  public 
men  of  the  day,  there  was  no  one  whose  political 
course  had  been  more  strongly  marked  by  a  strict 
regard  to  truth  and  honor  than  Mr.  Webster's. 

In  the  spring  of  1839,  Mr.  Webster  crossed  the 
Atlantic  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  making  a  hasty 
tour  through  England,  Scotland,  and  France.  His 
attention  was  particularly  drawn  to  the  agriculture 
of  England  and  Scotland;  to  the  great  subjects  of 
currency  and  exchange;  to  the  condition  of  the  labor- 
ing classes ;  and  to  the  practical  effect  on  the  politics 
of  Europe  of  the  system  of  the  Continental  alliance. 
No  traveller  from  this  country  has  probably  ever 
been  received  with  equal  attention  in  the  highest 
quarters  in  England.  Courtesies  usually  paid  only 
to  ambassadors  and  foreign  ministers  were  extended 
to  him.  His  table  was  covered  with  invitations  to 


230  AMERICAN    BIOGRAPHY 

the  seats  of  the  nobility  and  gentry;  and  his  com- 
pany was  eagerly  sought  at  the  public  entertainments 
which  took  place  while  he  was  in  the  country. 
Among  the  distinguished  individuals  with  whom  he 
contracted  intimate  relations  of  friendship,  the  late 
Lord  Ashburton  may  be  particularly  mentioned.  A 
mutual  regard  of  more  than  usual  warmth  arose  be- 
tween them.  This  circumstance  was  well  understood 
in  the  higher  circles  of  English  society,  and  when, 
two  years  later,  a  change  of  administration  in  both 
countries  brought  the  parties  to  which  they  were 
respectively  attached  into  power,  the  friendly  rela- 
tions well  known  to  exist  between  them  were  no 
doubt  among  the  motives  which  led  to  the  appoint- 
ment of  Lord  Ashburton  as  special  minister  to  the 
United  States. 

Toward  that  great  political  change  which  was 
consummated  in  1840,  by  which  General  Harrison 
was  raised  to  the  Presidency,  no  individual  probably 
in  the  country  had  contributed  more  largely  than 
Mr.  Webster;  and  this  by  powerful  appeals  to  the 
reason  of  the  people.  His  speeches  had  been  for 
years  a  public  armory,  from  which  weapons  both  of 
attack  and  defence  were  furnished  to  his  political 
friends  throughout  the  Union.  The  financial  policy 
of  the  two  preceding  administrations  was  the  chief 
cause  of  the  general  discontent  which  prevailed ;  and 
it  is  doing  no  injustice  to  the  other  eminent  leaders 
of  opposition  in  the  several  States  to  say,  that  by 
none  of  them  had  the  vices  of  this  system  from  the 
first  been  so  laboriously  and  effectively  exposed  as 
by  Mr.  Webster, 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Critical  State  of  Foreign  Affairs. — Mr.  Webster  appointed  to 
the  State  Department. — Death  of  President  Harrison. — Em- 
barrassed Relations  with  England. — The  Northeastern  Boun- 
dary.— Other  Subjects  of  Negotiation. — Extradition. — Sup- 
pression of  the  Slave-Trade. — Affair  of  the  Caroline. — Im- 
pressment, etc. — China. — The  Sandwich  Islands. — Mexico. — 
Mr.  Webster's  Services  as  Secretary  of  State. 

THE  condition  of  affairs  in  the  United  States,  on 
the  accession  of  President  Harrison  to  office,  in  the 
spring  of  1841,  was  difficult  and  critical,  especially 
as  far  as  the  foreign  relations  of  the  country  were 
concerned.  Ancient  and  modern  controversies  ex- 
isted with  England,  which  seemed  to  defy  adjust- 
ment. The  great  question  of  the  northwestern  boun- 
dary had  been  the  subject  of  negotiation  almost  ever 
since  the  peace  of  1783.  Every  effort  to  settle  it  had 
but  increased  the  difficulties  with  which  it  was  beset, 
by  exhausting  the  expedients  of  diplomacy.  The 
Oregon  question  was  rapidly  assuming  a  formidable 
aspect,  as  emigrants  began  to  move,  into  the  country 
in  dispute.  Not  less  serious  was  the  state  of  affairs 
on  the  southwestern  frontier,  where,  although  a  colli- 
sion with  Mexico  might  not  in  itself  be  an  event  to  be 
viewed  with  great  anxiety,  it  was  probable,  as  things 
then  stood,  that  it  would  have  brought  a  war  with 
Great  Britain  in  its  train. 

231 


AMERICAN    BIOGRAPHY 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  when  General  Harri- 
son acceded  to  the  Presidency,  after  perhaps  the 
most  strenuously  contested  election  ever  known,  and 
by  a  larger  popular  vote  than  had  ever  before  been 
given  in  the  United  States.  As  soon  as  the  result 
was  known,  the  President  elect  addressed  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Webster,  offering  him  any  place  he  might  choose 
in  his  Cabinet,  and  asking  his  advice  as  to  the  other 
members  of  which  it  should  be  composed.  Averse 
to  the  daily  drudgery  of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Webster 
gave  his  preference  to  the  Department  of  State, 
without  concealing  from  himself  that  it  might  be  the 
post  of  greater  care  and  responsibility. 

But  the  death  of  the  new  President,  when  just 
entering  upon  the  discharge  of  his  duties,  changed 
the  state  of  affairs  in  this  respect.  The  great  na- 
tional party  which  had  called  him  to  the  helm  was 
struck  with  astonishment.  No  rallying-point  pre- 
sented itself.  A  position  of  things  existed,  not  over- 
looked, indeed,  by  the  sagacious  men  who  framed 
the  Constitution,  but  which,  from  its  very  nature, 
can  never  enter  practically  into  the  calculations  of 
the  enthusiastic  multitudes  by  which,  in  times  of 
difficulty  and  excitement,  a  favorite  candidate  is 
borne  to  the  chair.  How  much  of  the  control  which 
it  would  otherwise  have  possessed  over  public 
opinion  could  be  retained  by  an  administration  thus 
unexpectedly  deprived  of  its  head,  was  a  question 
which  time  alone  could  settle.  Happily,  as  far  as  our 
foreign  relations  were  concerned,  a  character  had 
been  assumed  by  the  administration,  from  the  very 
formation  of  General  Harrison's  Cabinet,  which  was 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  233 

steadily  maintained,  till  the  adjustment  of  the  most 
difficult  points  in  controversy  was  effected  by  the 
treaty  of  Washington.  President  Harrison,  as  is 
well  known,  lived  but  one  month  after  his  inaugura- 
tion, but  all  the  members  of  his  Cabinet  remained 
in  office  under  Mr.  Tyler,  who  succeeded  to  the 
Presidency.  With  him,  of  course,  rested  the  general 
authority  of  regulating  and  directing  the  negotia- 
tions with  foreign  powers,  in  which  the  government 
might  be  engaged.  But  the  active  management  of 
these  negotiations  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Secretary 
of  State,  and  it  is  believed  that  no  difference  of 
views  in  regard  to  important  matters  arose  between 
him  and  Mr.  Tyler.  For  the  result  of  the  principal 
negotiation,  Mr.  Tyler  manifested  great  anxiety; 
and  Mr.  Webster  has  not  failed,  in  public  or  private, 
to  bear  witness  to  the  intelligent  and  earnest  atten- 
tion which  was  bestowed  by  him  on  the  proceedings, 
through  all  their  stages,  and  to  express  his  sense  of 
the  confidence  reposed  in  himself  by  the  head  of  the 
administration,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of 
the  transactions. 

If  the  position  of  things  was  difficult  here,  it  was 
not  less  so  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic ;  indeed, 
many  of  the  causes  of  embarrassment  were  common 
to  the  two  countries.  There,  as  here,  the  corre- 
spondence, whether  conducted  at  Washington  or 
London,  had  of  late  years  done  nothing  toward  an 
amicable  settlement  of  the  great  questions  at  issue. 
It  had  degenerated  into  an  exercise  of  diplomatic 
logic,  with  the  effect,  in  England  as  well  as  in  Amer- 
ica, of  strengthening  each  party  in  the  belief  of  its 


234  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

own  rights,  and  of  working  up  the  public  mind  to 
a  reluctant  feeling  that  the  time  was  at  hand  when 
those  rights  must  be  maintained  by  force. 

While  this  was  the  state  of  affairs  with  reference 
to  the  immediate  relations  of  the  two  countries, 
Lord  Palmerston  was  urging  France  into  a  coopera- 
tion with  the  four  other  leading  powers  of  Europe 
in  the  adoption  of  a  policy,  by  the  negotiation  of  the 
quintuple  treaty,  which  would  have  left  the  United 
States  in  a  position  of  dangerous  insulation  on  the 
subject  of  the  great  maritime  question  of  the  day. 

At  this  juncture,  a  change  of  administration  oc- 
curred in  England,  subsequent  but  by  a  few  months 
to  that  which  had  taken  place  in  the  government 
of  the  United  States.  Lord  Melbourne's  govern- 
ment gave  way  to  that  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  the 
summer  of  1841 ;  it  remained  to  be  seen  with  what 
influence  on  the  relations  of  the  two  countries. 

From  his  first  entrance  on  office  as  Secretary  of 
State,  Mr.  Webster,  long  familiar  with  the  per- 
plexed history  of  the  negotiation  relative  to  the 
boundary  between  Canada  and  the  United  States, 
had  perceived  the  necessity  of  taking  a  "new  de- 
parture." 

Early  in  the  summer  of  1841,  Mr.  Webster  had 
intimated  to  Mr.  Fox,  the  British  Minister  at  Wash- 
ington, that  the  American  government  was  prepared 
to  consider,  and,  if  practicable,  adopt,  a  conven- 
tional line,  as  the  only  mode  of  cutting  the  Gordian 
knot  of  the  controversy.  This  overture  was,  of 
course,  conveyed  to  London.  Though  not  leading 
to  any  result  on  the  part  of  the  ministry  just  going 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  235 

out  of  office,  it  was  embraced  by  their  successors  in 
the  same  wise  and  conciliatory  spirit  in  which  it 
had  been  made.  On  the  26th  of  December,  1841, 
a  note  was  addressed  by  Lord  Aberdeen  to  Mr.  Ev- 
erett, inviting  him  to  an  interview  on  the  following 
day,  when  he  communicated  the  purpose  of  the  Brit- 
ish government  to  send  a  special  mission  to  the 
United  States,  Lord  Ashburton  being  the  person 
selected  as  minister,  and  furnished  with  full  powers 
to  settle  every  question  in  controversy. 

This  step  on  the  part  of  the  British  government 
was  as  bold  as  it  was  wise.  It  met  the  difficulty  in 
the  face.  It  justly  assumed  the  existence  of  a  cor- 
responding spirit  of  conciliation  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States,  and  of  a  desire  to  bring  matters  to 
a  practical  result.  It  was  bold,  because  it  was  the 
last  expedient  for  an  amicable  adjustment,  and  be- 
cause its  failure  must  necessarily  lead  to  very  serious 
and  immediate  consequences. 

In  his  choice  of  a  minister,  Lord  Aberdeen  was 
not  less  fortunate  than  he  had  been  wise  in  propos- 
ing the  measure.  Lord  Ashburton  was  above  the 
reach  of  the  motives  which  influence  politicians  of 
an  ordinary  stamp,  and  unencumbered  by  the  habits 
of  routine  which  belong  to  men  regularly  trained 
in  a  career.  He  possessed  a  weight  of  character 
at  home  which  made  him  independent  of  the  vulgar 
resorts  of  popularity.  He  was  animated  by  a  kindly 
feeling,  and  bound  by  kindly  associations  to  this 
country.  There  was  certainly  no  public  man  in  Eng- 
land who  united  in  an  equal  degree  the  confidence 
of  his  own  government  and  country  with  those 


236  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

claims  to  the  good-will  of  the  opposite  party,  which 
were  scarcely  less  essential  to  success.  The  relations 
of  personal  friendship  contracted  by  Mr.  Webster 
with  Lord  Ashburton  in  1839  have  already  been 
alluded  to,  as  influencing  the  selection.  They  de- 
cided Lord  Ashburton  in  accepting  the  appointment. 
The  writer  was  informed  by  Lord  Ashburton  him- 
self, that  he  should  have  despaired  of  bringing  mat- 
ters to  a  settlement  advantageous  to  both  countries, 
but  for  his  reliance  on  the  upright  and  honorable 
character  of  the  American  Secretary. 

With  the  appointment  of  Lord  Ashburton,  the 
discussion  of  the  main  questions  in  controversy  be- 
tween the  two  countries,  as  far  as  it  had  been  carried 
on  in  London,  was  transferred  to  Washington.  But 
as  an  earnest  of  the  conciliatory  spirit  which  bore 
sway  in  the  British  counsels,  Lord  Aberdeen  had 
announced  to  Mr.  Everett,  in  the  interval  which 
elapsed  between  Lord  Ashburton's  appointment  and 
his  arrival  at  his  place  of  destination,  that  the 
Queen's  government  admitted  the  wrong  done  by 
the  detention  of  the  Tigris  and  Seamew  in  the 
African  waters,  and  was  prepared  to  indemnify 
their  owners  for  the  losses  sustained. 

The  first  step  taken  by  Mr.  Webster,  after  receiv- 
ing the  directions  of  the  President  in  reference  to 
the  negotiation,  was  to  invite  the  cooperation  of 
Massachusetts  and  Maine,  the  territory  in  dispute 
being  the  property  of  the  two  States,  and  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  latter.  The  extent  of  the  treaty- 
making  power  of  the  United  States,  in  a  matter  of 
such  delicacy  as  the  cession  of  territory  claimed  by 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  237 

a  State  to  be  within  its  limits,  belongs  to  the  more 
difficult  class  of  constitutional  doctrines. 

Massachusetts  had  anticipated  the  necessity  of  the 
measure,  and  made  provision  for  the  appointment 
of  commissioners.  The  legislature  of  Maine  was 
promptly  convened  for  the  same  purpose  by  the  late 
Governor  Fairfield.  Four  parties  were  thus  in  pres- 
ence at  Washington  for  the  management  of  the 
negotiation:  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain, 
Massachusetts  and  Maine.  Recollecting  that  the 
question  to  be  settled  was  one  which  had  defied  all 
the  arts  of  diplomacy  for  half  a  century,  it  seemed 
to  a  distant,  and  especially  a  European  observer,  as 
if  the  last  experiment,  exceeding  every  former  step 
in  its  necessary  complication,  was  destined  to  a  fail- 
ure proportionately  signal  and  ignominious.  The 
course  pursued  by  the  American  Secretary,  in  mak- 
ing the  result  of  the  negotiation  relative  to  the  boun- 
dary contingent  upon  the  approval  of  the  State 
commissioners,  was  regarded  in  Europe  as  decidedly 
ominous  of  its  failure. 

It  undoubtedly  required  a  high  degree  of  political 
courage  thus  to  put  the  absolute  control  of  the  sub- 
ject, to  a  certain  extent,  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
National  Government;  but  it  was  a  courage  fully 
warranted  by  the  event.  It  is  now  evident  that  this 
mode  of  procedure  was  the  only  one  which  could 
have  been  adopted  with  any  hope  of  success. 
Though  complicated  in  appearance,  it  was  in  reality 
the  simplest  mode  in  which  the  cooperation  of  the 
States  could  have  been  secured. 

The  fate  of  the  negotiation  might  be  considered 


238  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

as  involved  in  the  success  of  this  appeal  to  the  Chief 
Magistrate  of  Maine,  and  through  him  to  his  con- 
stituents. It  is  said  that,  when  Mr.  Webster  heard 
that  the  legislature  of  Maine  had  adopted  the  reso- 
lutions for  the  commission,  he  went  to  President 
Tyler  and  said,  with  evident  satisfaction  and  some 
animation.  "The  crisis  is  past!  " 

It  was,  in  truth,  an  adjustment  equally  honorable 
and  advantageous  to  all  parties.  There  is  not  an 
individual  of  common  sense  or  common  conscience 
in  Maine  or  Massachusetts,  in  the  United  States 
or  Great  Britain,  who  would  now  wish  it  disturbed. 
It  took  from  Maine  a  tract  of  land  northwest  of  the 
St.  John,  which  the  people  of  Maine  believed  to 
belong  to  them  under  the  treaty  of  1783.  But  the 
disputed  title  to  the  worthless  tract  of  morass,  heath, 
and  rock,  covered  with  snow  or  fog  throughout  a 
great  part  of  the  year,  was  not  ceded  gratuitously. 
We  obtained  the  navigation  of  the  St.  John,  the 
natural  outlet  of  the  whole  country,  without  which 
the  territory  watered  by  it  would  have  been  of  com- 
paratively little  value;  we  obtained  a  good  natural 
boundary  as  far  as  the  course  of  the  river  was  fol- 
lowed ;  and  we  established  the  line  which  we  claimed 
at  the  head  of  the  Connecticut,  on  Lake  Champlain, 
and  on  the  upper  lakes;  territorial  objects  of  con- 
siderable interest.  Great  Britain  had  equal  reason 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  result.  For  her  the  territory 
northwest  of  the  St.  John,  worthless  to  us,  had  a 
geographical  and  political  value;  it  gave  her  a  con- 
venient connection  between  her  provinces,  which 
was  all  she  desired.  Both  sides  gained  the  only  ob- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  239 

ject  which  really  was  of  importance  to  either,  a  set- 
tlement by  creditable  means  of  a  wearisome  na- 
tional controversy;  an  honorable  escape  from  the 
scourge  and  curse  of  war. 

Besides  the  convenience  of  such  an  understanding 
on  the  part  of  the  two  great  commercial  countries, 
from  which  language,  personal  appearance,  and 
manners  render  mutual  escape  so  easy,  the  condition 
of  the  frontier  of  the  United  States  and  Canada  was 
such  as  to  make  this  provision  all  but  necessary  for 
the  preservation  of  the  peace  of  the  two  countries 

Another  difficult  question  settled  in  this  adjust- 
ment was  that  of  the  extradition  of  fugitives  from 
justice,  and  the  stipulations  for  extradition  in  the 
treaty  of  Washington  appear  to  have  served  as  a 
model  for  those  since  entered  into  between  the  most 
considerable  European  powers.  A  convention  for 
the  same  purpose  was  concluded  between  England 
and  France  on  the  I3th  of  February,  1843,  and 
other  similar  compacts  have  still  more  recently  been 
negotiated.  Between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain  the  operation  of  this  part  of  the  treaty  has 
been,  in  all  ordinary  cases,  entirely  satisfactory. 
Persons  charged  with  the  crimes  to  which  its  pro- 
visions extend  have  been  mutually  surrendered ;  and 
the  cause  of  public  justice,  and  in  many  cases  im- 
portant private  interests,  have  been  materially 
served  on  both  sides  of  the  water. 

Not  inferior  in  importance  and  delicacy  to  the 
other  subjects  provided  for  by  the  treaty  was  that 
which  concerned  the  measures  for  the  suppression 
of  "  the  slave-trade  "  on  the  coast  of  Africa.  In 


240  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

order  to  understand  the  difficulties  with  which  Mr. 
Webster  had  to  contend  on  this  subject,  a  brief  his- 
tory of  the  question  must  be  given.  The  law  of 
nations,  as  understood  and  expounded  by  the  most 
respectable  authorities  and  tribunals,  European  and 
American,  recognizes  the  right  of  search  of  neutral 
vessels  in  time  of  war,  by  the  public  ships  of  the 
belligerents.  It  recognizes  no  right  of  search  in 
time  of  peace.  It  makes  no  distinction  between  a 
right  of  visitation  and  a  right  of  search.  To  com- 
pel a  trading-vessel,  against  the  will  of  her  com- 
mander, to  come  to  and  be  boarded,  for  any  purpose 
whatsoever,  is  an  exercise  of  the  right  of  search 
which  the  law  of  nations  concedes  to  belligerents  for 
certain  purposes.  To  do  this  in  time  of  peace,  under 
whatever  name  it  may  be  excused  or  justified,  is  to 
perform  an  act  of  mere  power,  for  which  the  law  of 
nations  affords  no  warrant.  The  moral  quality  of 
the  action,  and  the  estimate  formed  of  it,  will  of 
course  depend  upon  circumstances,  motives,  and 
manner.  If  an  armed  ship  board  a  vessel  under  rea- 
sonable suspicion  that  she  is  a  pirate  and  when  there 
is  no  other  convenient  mode  of  ascertaining  that 
point,  there  would  be  no  cause  of  blame,  although 
the  suspicion  turned  out  to  be  groundless. 

The  British  government,  for  the  praiseworthy 
purpose  of  putting  a  stop  to  the  traffic  in  slaves,  has 
at  different  times  entered  into  conventions  with  sev- 
eral of  the  states  of  Europe  authorizing  a  mutual 
right  of  search  of  the  trading-vessels  of  each  con- 
tracting party  by  the  armed  cruisers  of  the  other 
party.  These  treaties  give  no  right  to  search  the 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  241 

vessels  of  nations  not  parties  to  them.  But  if  an 
armed  ship  of  either  party  should  search  a  vessel  of 
a  third  power  under  a  reasonable  suspicion  that  she 
belonged  to  the  other  contracting  party,  and  was 
pursuing  trie  slave-trade  in  contravention  of  the 
treaty,  this  act  of  power,  performed  by  mistake,  and 
with  requisite  moderation  and  circumspection  in  the 
manner,  would  not  be  just  ground  of  offence.  It 
would,  however,  authorize  a  reasonable  expectation 
of  indemnification  on  behalf  of  the  private  individ- 
uals who  might  suffer  by  the  detention,  as  in  other 
cases  of  injury  inflicted  on  innocent  persons  by  pub- 
lic functionaries  acting  with  good  intentions,  but  at 
their  peril. 

The  government  of  the  United  States,  both  in  its 
executive  and  legislative  branches,  has  at  almost  all 
times  manifested  an  extreme  repugnance  to  enter 
into  conventions  for  a  mutual  right  of  search.  It 
has  not  yielded  to  any  other  power  in  its  aversion 
to  the  slave-trade,  which  it  was  the  first  government 
to  denounce  as  piracy.  The  reluctance  in  question 
grew  principally  out  of  the  injuries  inflicted  upon 
the  American  commerce,  and  still  more  out  of  the 
personal  outrages  in  the  impressment  of  American 
seamen,  which  took  place  during  the  wars  of  Napo- 
leon, and  incidentally  to  the  belligerent  right  of 
search  and  the  enforcement  of  the  Orders  in  Council 
and  the  Berlin  and  Milan  Decrees.  Besides  a  whole- 
sale confiscation  of  American  property,  hundreds  of 
American  seamen  were  impressed  into  the  ships  of 
war  of  Great  Britain.  So  deeply  had  the  public 
sensibility  been  wounded  on  both  points,  that  any 

A.  B.,  VOL.  VI. —  l6 


242  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

extension  of  the  right  of  search  by  the  consent  of  the 
United  States  was  for  a  long  time  nearly  hopeless. 

But  this  feeling,  strong  and  general  as  it  was, 
yielded  at  last  to  the  detestation  of  the  slave-trada. 
Toward  the  close  of  the  second  administration  of 
Mr.  Monroe  the  Executive  had  been  induced,  acting 
under  the  sanction  of  resolutions  of  the  two  houses 
of  Congress,  to  agree  to  a  convention  with  Great 
Britain  for  a  mutual  right  of  search  of  vessels  sus- 
pected of  being  engaged  in  the  traffic. 

In  defining  the  limits  within  which  this  right 
should  be  exercised,  the  coasts  of  America  were  in- 
cluded. The  Senate  were  of  opinion  that  such  a  pro- 
vision might  be  regarded  as  an  admission  that  the 
slave-trade  was  carried  on  between  the  coasts  of 
Africa  and  the  United  States,  contrary  to  the  known 
fact,  and  to  the  reproach  either  of  the  will  or  power 
of  the  United  States  to  enforce  their  laws,  by  which 
it  was  declared  to  be  piracy.  It  also  placed  the  whole 
coast  of  the  Union  under  the  surveillance  of  the 
cruisers  of  a  foreign  power.  The  Senate,  accord- 
ingly, ratified  the  treaty,  with  an  amendment  ex- 
empting the  coasts  of  the  United  States  from  the 
operation  of  the  article.  They  also  introduced  other 
amendments  of  less  importance. 

On  the  return  of  the  treaty  to  London  thus  amend- 
ed, Mr.  Canning,  the  British  Foreign  Secretary, 
gave  way  to  a  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  at  the  course 
pursued  by  the  Senate,  not  so  much  on  account  of 
any  decided  objection  to  the  amendment  in  itself 
considered,  as  to  the  claim  of  the  Senate  to  introduce 
any  change  into  a  treaty  negotiated  according  to  in- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  243 

structions.  Under  the  influence  of  this  feeling,  Mr. 
Canning  refused  to  ratify  the  treaty  as  amended, 
and  no  further  attempt  was  at  that  time  made  to 
renew  the  negotiation. 

After  the  treaty  with  Portugal,  in  1838,  the  ves- 
sels of  that  country,  which,  with  those  of  Spain, 
were  most  largely  engaged  in  the  traffic,  began  to 
assume  the  flag  of  the  United  States  as  a  protection ; 
and  in  many  cases,  also,  although  the  property  of 
vessels  and  cargo  had,  by  collusive  transfers  on  the 
African  coast,  become  Spanish  or  Portuguese,  the 
vessels  had  been  built  and  fitted  out  in  the  United 
States,  and  too  often,  it  may  be  feared,  with  Amer- 
ican capital.  Vessels  of  this  description  were  pro- 
vided with  two  sets  of  papers,  to  be  used  as  occasion 
might  require. 

Had  nothing  further  been  done  by  British  cruis- 
ers than  to  board  and  search  these  vessels,  whether 
before  or  after  a  transfer  of  this  kind,  no  complaint 
would  probably  have  been  made  by  the  government 
of  the  United  States.  But,  as  many  American  ves- 
sels were  engaged  in  lawful  commerce  on  the  coast 
of  Africa,  it  frequently  happened  that  they  were 
boarded  by  British  cruisers,  not  always  under  the 
command  of  discreet  officers.  Some  voyages  were 
broken  up,  officers  and  men  occasionally  ill-treated, 
and  vessels  sent  to  the  United  States  or  Sierra  Leone 
for  adjudication. 

In  1840  an  agreement  was  made  between  the  offi- 
cers in  command  of  the  British  and  American  squad- 
rons respectively,  sanctioning  a  reciprocal  right  of 
search  on  the  coast  of  Africa.  It  was  a  well-meant, 


244  AMERICAN    BIOGRAPHY 

but  unauthorized  step,  and  was  promptly  disavowed 
by  the  administration  of  Mr.  Van  Buren.  Its  opera- 
tion, while  it  lasted,  was  but  to  increase  the  existing 
difficulty.  Reports  of  the  interruptions  experienced 
by  our  commerce  in  the  African  waters  began 
greatly  to  multiply;  and  there  was  a  strong  interest 
on  the  part  of  those  surreptitiously  engaged  in  the 
traffic  to  give  them  currency.  A  deep  feeling  began 
to  be  manifested  in  the  country ;  and  the  correspond- 
ence between  the  American  Minister  in  London  and 
Lord  Palmerston,  in  the  last  days  of  the  Melbourne 
ministry,  was  such  as  to  show  that  the  controversy 
had  reached  a  critical  point.  Such  was  the  state  of 
the  question  when  Mr.  Webster  entered  the  Depart- 
ment of  State. 

The  controversy  was  transmitted,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  the  new  administrations  on  both  sides  of  the 
water,  but  soon  assumed  a  somewhat  modified  char- 
acter. The  quintuple  treaty,  as  it  was  called,  was 
concluded  at  London,  on  the  2Oth  of  December, 
1841,  by  England,  France,  Austria,  Prussia,  and 
Russia;  and  information  of  that  fact,  as  we  have 
seen  above,  was  given  by  Lord  Aberdeen  to  Mr. 
Everett  the  same  day.  A  strong  desire  was  inti- 
mated that  the  United  States  would  join  this  asso- 
ciation of  the  great  powers,  but  no  formal  invitation 
for  that  purpose  was  addressed  to  them.  But  the 
recent  occurrences  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  the 
tone  of  the  correspondence  above  alluded  to,  had 
increased  the  standing  repugnance  of  the  United 
States  to  the  recognition  of  a  right  of  search  in  time 
of  peace. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  24$ 

The  preceding  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  ques- 
tion will  show  the  difficulty  of  the  position  in  refer- 
ence to  this  most  important  interest,  at  the  time 
Lord  Ashburton's  mission  was  instituted.  With 
what  practical  good  sense  and  high  statesmanship 
the  controversy  was  terminated  is  well  known  to  the 
country. 

The  wisdom  with  which  the  eighth  article  of  the 
treaty  was  drawn  up  was  soon  seen  in  its  conse- 
quences. Its  effect  was  decisive.  It  put  a  stop  to  all 
discontent  at  home  in  reference  to  the  interruption  of 
our  lawful  commerce  on  the  coast  of  Africa. 

The  three  subjects  on  which  we  have  dwelt,  name- 
ly, the  northeastern  boundary,  the  extradition  of 
fugitives,  and  the  suppression  of  the  slave-trade, 
were  the  only  ones  which  required  to  be  provided  for 
by  treaty  stipulation.  Other  subjects,  scarcely  less 
important  and  fully  as  difficult,  were  happily  dis- 
posed of  in  the  correspondence  of  the  plenipoten- 
tiaries. 

Some  disappointment  was  probably  felt,  when  the 
treaty  of  Washington  was  published,  that  a  settle- 
ment of  the  Oregon  question  was  not  included 
among  its  provisions.  It  need  not  be  said  that  a  sub- 
ject of  such  magnitude  did  not  escape  the  attention 
of  the  negotiators.  It  was,  however,  speedily  in- 
ferred by  Mr.  Webster,  from  the  purport  of  his 
formal  conferences  with  Lord  Ashburton  on  this 
point,  that  an  arrangement  of  this  question  was  not 
then  practicable,  and  that  to  attempt  it  would  be  to 
put  the  entire  negotiation  to  great  risk  of  failure. 
On  the  otjier  hand,  it  was  not  less  certain  that?  by 


246  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

i 

closing  up  the  other  matters  in  controversy,  the  best 
preparation  was  made  for  bringing  the  Oregon  dis- 
pute to  an  amicable  issue,  whenever  circumstances 
should  favor  that  undertaking.  Considerable  firm- 
ness was  no  doubt  required  to  act  upon  this  policy, 
and  to  forego  the  attempt,  at  least,  to  settle  a  ques- 
tion rapidly  growing  into  the  most  formidable  mag- 
nitude. It  is  unnecessary  to  say  how  completely  the 
course  adopted  has  been  justified  by  the  event 

We  have  in  the  preceding  remarks  confined  our- 
selves to  the  topics  connected  with  the  treaty  of 
Washington.  But  other  subjects  of  great  impor- 
tance connected  with  the  foreign  affairs  of  the  coun- 
try engaged  the  attention  of  Mr.  Webster  as  Secre- 
tary of  State. 

The  first  of  these  pertained  to  our  controversies 
with  Mexico,  and  was  treated  in  a  letter  to  M.  de 
Bocanegra,  the  Mexican  Secretary  of  State  and  For- 
eign Relations.  Under  the  head  of  "  Relations  with 
Spain  "  there  was  a  correspondence  of  great  interest 
between  the  Chevalier  d'Argaiz,  the  representative 
of  that  government,  and  Mr.  Webster,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  "  Amistad."  The  pertinacity  with  which 
this  matter  was  pursued  by  Spain,  after  its  adjudica- 
tion by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  fur- 
nishes an  instructive  commentary  upon  the  sincerity 
of  that  government  in  its  measures  for  the  abolition 
of  the  slave-trade. 

Of  still  greater  interest  are  the  institution  of  the 
mission  to  China,  and  the  steps  which  led  to  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  independence  of  the  Sandwich 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  247 

Islands.  At  any  period  less  crowded  with  impor- 
tant events  the  opening  of  diplomatic  relations  with 
China,  and  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty  of  commerce 
with  that  power,  would  have  been  deemed  occur- 
rences of  unusual  importance.  It  certainly  reflects 
great  credit  on  the  administration,  that  it  acted  with 
such  promptitude  and  efficiency  in  seizing  this  oppor- 
tunity of  multiplying  avenues  of  commercial  inter- 
course. Nor  is  less  praise  due  to  the  energy  and 
skill  of  the  negotiator,  Mr.  Gushing,  to  whom  this 
novel  and  important  undertaking  was  confided,  un- 
der instruction  from  Mr.  Webster,  and  who  was 
able  to  embark  from  China,  on  his  return  home- 
ward, in  six  months  after  his  arrival,  having  in  the 
mean  time  satisfactorily  concluded  the  treaty. 

The  application  of  the  representatives  of  the  Sand- 
wich Islands  to  the  government  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  countenance  extended  to  them  at  Washing- 
ton, exercised  a  most  salutary  and  seasonable  influ- 
ence over  the  destiny  of  those  islands.  The  British 
government  was  promptly  made  aware  of  the  course 
pursued  by  the  United  States,  and  was  no  doubt  led, 
in  a  considerable  degree,  by  this  circumstance,  to 
promise  the  Hawaiian  delegates,  on  the  part  of  Eng- 
land, to  respect  the  independent  neutrality  of  their 
government.  In  the  mean  time  the  British  admiral 
on  that  station  had  taken  provisional  possession  of 
them  on  behalf  of  his  government,  in  anticipation  of 
a  similar  movement  which  was  expected  on  the  part 
of  France.  If  intelligence  of  this  occurrence  had 
been  received  in  London  before  the  promise  above 
alluded  to  was  given  by  Lord  Aberdeen  to  Messrs, 


248  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

Richards  and  Haalilio,  it  is  not  impossible  that  Great 
Britain  might  have  felt  herself  warranted  in  retain- 
ing the  protectorate  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands  as  an 
offset  for  the  occupation  of  Tahiti  by  the  French. 
As  it  was,  the  temporary  arrangement  of  the  British 
admiral  was  disavowed,  and  the  government  r&- 
stored  to  the  native  chief. 

There  was  also  a  correspondence  between  Mr. 
Webster  and  the  Portuguese  Minister,  on  the  subject 
of  duties  on  Portuguese  wines,  and  a  report  of  great 
importance  on  the  Sound  duties  and  the  Zoll-Verein, 
topics  to  which  the  recent  changes  in  the  Germanic 
system  will  henceforward  impart  a  greatly  increased 
importance. 

This  brief  enumeration  will  of  itself  sufficiently 
show  the  extensive  range  of  the  subjects  to  which 
the  attention  of  Mr.  Webster  was  called,  during  the 
two  years  for  which  he  rilled  the  Department  of 
State. 

The  published  correspondence  probably  forms  but 
a  small  portion  of  the  official  labors  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  State  for  the  period  during  which  it  was 
filled  by  Mr.  Webster.  They  constitute,  neverthe- 
less, the  most  important  part  of  the  documentary 
record  of  a  period  of  official  service,  brief,  indeed, 
but  as  beneficial  to  the  country  as  any  of  which  the 
memory  is  preserved  in  her  annals.  The  adminis- 
tration of  General  Harrison  found  the  United  States, 
in  the  spring  of  1841,  on  the  verge  of  a  war,  not  with 
a  feeble  Spanish  province,  scarcely  capable  of  a  re- 
spectable resistance,  but  with  the  most  powerful  gov- 
ernment on  earth.  The  conduct  of  our  foreign 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  249 

relations  was  intrusted  to  Mr.  Webster,  as  Secretary 
of  State,  and  in  the  two  years  during  which  he  filled 
that  office  controversies  of  fifty  years'  standing  were 
terminated,  new  causes  of  quarrel  that  sprung  up 
like  hydra's  heads  were  settled,  and  peace  was  pre- 
served upon  honorable  terms.  The  British  govern- 
ment, fresh  from  the  conquest  of  China,  perhaps 
never  felt  itself  stronger  than  in  the  year  1842,  and  a 
full  share  of  credit  is  due  to  the  spirit  of  conciliation 
which  swayed  its  counsels.  Much  is  due  to  the 
wise  and  amiable  minister  who  was  despatched  from 
England  on  the  holy  errand  of  peace;  much  to  the 
patriotism  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  who 
confirmed  the  treaty  of  Washington  by  a  larger  ma- 
jority than  ever  before  sustained  a  measure  of  this 
kind  which  divided  public  opinion ;  but  the  first  meed 
of  praise  is  unquestionably  due  to  the  American  ne- 
gotiator. Let  the  just  measure  of  that  praise  be 
estimated,  by  reflecting  what  would  have  been  our 
condition  during  those  exciting  years,  if,  instead  of, 
or  in  addition  to,  the  war  with  Mexico,  we  had  been 
involved  in  a  war  with  Great  Britain. 


CHAPTER  IX 

Mr.  Webster  resigns  his  Place  in  Mr.  Tyler's  Cabinet. — Sup- 
ports Mr.  Clay's  Nomination  for  the  Presidency. — Mr.  Web- 
ster returns  to  the  Senate. — Admission  of  Texas  to  the 
Union. — The  War  with  Mexico. — Settlement  of  the  Oregon 
Controversy. — Revival  of  the  Sub-Treasury  System  and  Re- 
peal of  the  Tariff  Law  of  1842. — Southern  Tour. — Efforts  in 
Congress  to  organize  a  Territorial  Government  for  the  Prov- 
inces gained  from  Mexico. — Nomination  of  General  Taylor 
for  the  Presidency. — Constitution  adopted  by  California  pro- 
hibiting Slavery. — Increase  of  Anti-slavery  Agitation. — Mr. 
Webster's  "  Seventh  of  March  Speech  "  for  the  Union. — 
General  Taylor's  Death,  and  the  Accession  of  Mr.  Fillmore 
to  the  Presidency. — Mr.  Webster  called  to  the  Department 
of  State. 

MR.  WEBSTER  remained  in  the  Department  of 
State  but  a  little  over  two  years.  His  last  act  was 
the  preparation  of  the  instructions  of  Mr.  Gushing, 
who  had  been  appointed  Commissioner  to  China. 
Difficulties  had  occurred  the  summer  before,  between 
President  Tyler  and  some  of  the  members  of  his 
Cabinet,  and  all  of  those  gentlemen,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Mr.  Webster,  tendered  their  resignations, 
which  were  accepted.  Hard  thoughts  were  enter- 
tained of  Mr.  Webster  in  some  quarters  for  con- 
tinuing to  hold  his  seat  after  the  resignation  of  his 
colleagues.  President  Tyler,  however,  had  in  no 
degree  withdrawn  his  confidence  from  Mr.  Webster 

250 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  251 

in  reference  to  the  foreign  affairs  of  the  country,  nor 
interfered  with  the  administration  of  his  department, 
and  Mr.  Webster  conceived  that  the  interests  in- 
volved in  his  remaining  at  his  post  were  far  too  im- 
portant to  be  sacrificed  to  punctilio.  His  own  sense 
of  duty  in  this  respect  was  confirmed  by  the  unani- 
mous counsel  of  the  Massachusetts  delegation  in 
Congress,  and  by  judicious  friends  in  all  parts  of  the 
country.  In  fact,  it  will  be  remembered  that  when 
difficulties  sprung  up  between  Mr.  Tyler  and  the 
Whig  party  in  Congress,  in  1842,  the  Whig  press 
generally  throughout  the  country  called  upon  the 
members  of  the  Cabinet  appointed  by  General  Harri- 
son to  retain  their  places  till  they  should  be  removed 
by  Mr.  Tyler. 

Mr.  Webster  remained  in  private  life  during  the 
residue  of  President  Tyler's  administration,  occupied 
as  usual  with  professional  pursuits,  and  enjoying  in 
the  appropriate  seasons  the  retirement  of  his  farm. 
He  endeavored  by  private  communications  to  arouse 
the  feeling  of  the  North  to  the  projects  which  he  per- 
ceived to  be  in  agitation  for  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  but  the  danger  was  regarded  at  that  time  as 
too  remote  to  be  contended  against.  A  short  time 
only  elapsed  before  the  fulfilment  of  his  anticipa- 
tions was  forced  upon  the  country,  with  fearful 
urgency,  and  a  train  of  consequences  of  which  it 
was  left  to  posterity  to  witness  the  full  development. 
Between  the  years  1843  and  1845  tne  fortunes  of 
the  United  States  were  subjected  to  an  influence,  for 
good  or  for  evil,  not  to  be  exhausted  for  centuries. 

The  nomination  of  Mr.  Clay  to  the  Presidency  in 


2$2  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

1844  was  cordially  supported  by  Mr.  Webster.  He 
took  the  field,  as  in  the  summer  of  1840  in  favor  of 
General  Harrison. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  result  of  this  election 
was  decisive  of  the  question  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas.  The  opinions  expressed  by  Mr.  Van  Buren 
against  the  immediate  consummation  of  that  project 
had  prevented  his  receiving  the  nomination  of  the 
Baltimore  Convention.  Mr.  Clay  was  pledged 
against  the  measure,  and  Mr.  Polk  was  selected  as 
its  sure  friend. 

At  the  first  session  of  the  Twenty-ninth  Congress 
(1845-46),  Mr.  Webster  took  his  seat  as  the  suc- 
cessor of  Mr.  Choate  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  The  question  of  the  admission  of  Texas 
was  decided  at  the  very  commencement  of  the  ses- 
sion. It  was  opposed  by  Mr.  Webster.  To  all  the 
other  objections  to  the  measure  in  his  mind  was 
added  that  of  unconstitutionally.  The  annexation 
was  now  brought  about  simply  by  a  joint  resolution 
of  the  two  houses,  after  it  had  been  found  impossible 
to  effect  it  by  treaty,  the  only  form  'known  to  the 
Constitution  by  which  a  compact  can  be  entered  into 
with  a  foreign  power.  Mr.  Jefferson  was  of  opinion 
in  1803,  that  even  a  treaty  with  France  was  not  suffi- 
cient for  the  annexation  of  Louisiana,  but  that  an 
amendment  of  the  Constitution  was  necessary  for 
that  purpose.  In  1845  the  Executive  and  a  majority 
of  Congress,  having  failed  to  carry  the  ratification 
of  a  treaty  of  annexation  by  the  constitutional  ma- 
jority, scrupled  not  to  accomplish  their  purpose  by  a 
joint  resolution  of  the  two  houses;  and  this  measure 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  253 

was  effected  under  the  lead  of  statesmen  who  claim 
to  construe  the  Constitution  with  literal  strictness. 
Events  like  these  furnish  a  painful  illustration  of  the 
frailty  of  constitutional  restraints  as  a  barrier  against 
the  consummation  of  the  favorite  measures  of  a 
dominant  party. 

The  great  event  of  the  administration  of  President 
Polk  was  the  war  with  Mexico. 

The  proffered  annexation  of  Texas  had  been  de- 
clined both  by  General  Jackson  and  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
on  the  ground  that,  unless  made  with  the  consent  of 
Mexico,  it  would  involve  a  war  with  that  power. 
That  this  would  be  the  effect  was  not  less  certain  on 
the  2d  of  December,  1845,  when  Congress  were  con- 
gratulated on  the  "  bloodless  "  acquisition,  than  it 
was  when,  on  the  I3th  of  January  following,  Gen- 
eral Taylor  was  instructed  to  occupy  the  left  bank 
of  the  Rio  del  Norte.  In  fact,  in  the  very  message 
in  which  President  Polk  remarks  to  Congress  "  that 
the  sword  had  had  no  part  in  the  victory,"  he  gives 
them  also  the  significant  information,  that,  upon  the 
earnest  appeal  both  of  the  Congress  and  convention 
of  Texas,  he  had  ordered  "  an  efficient  military  force 
to  take  a  position  between  the  Nueces  and  the  Del 
Norte." 

This  force,  however  efficient  in  proportion  to  its 
numbers  and  in  virtue  of  the  gallantry  and  skill  of  its 
commander,  was  found  to  be  inadequate  to  sustain 
the  brunt  of  the  Mexican  arms.  Rapid  movements 
on  the  part  of  Generals  Ampudia  and  Arista,  com- 
manding on  the  frontier,  seriously  endangered  the 
safety  of  General  Taylor's  force,  and  it  became 


254  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

necessary  for  Congress  to  strengthen  it  by  prompt 
reinforcements.  In  this  way  the  war  was  com- 
menced. No  formal  declaration  had  taken  place, 
nor  had  it  been  in  the  power  of  Congress  to  make 
known  its  will  on  the  subject,  till  an  absolute 
necessity  arose  of  reinforcing  General  Taylor,  and 
the  subject  had  ceased  to  be  one  for  legislative 
discretion. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  was  of  course  im- 
possible for  Mr.  Webster  to  approve  the  war.  It 
had  been  brought  on  by  the  Executive  will,  and  with- 
out the  concurrence  of  Congress  till  Congress  had 
ceased  to  have  an  option,  and  its  well-known  ulterior 
objects  were  such  as  he  could  not  but  contemplate 
with  equal  disapprobation  and  alarm.  Still,  how- 
ever, in  common  with  the  body  of  his  political 
friends,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  he  abstained  from 
all  factious  opposition,  and  all  measures  calculated 
to  embarrass  the  government.  The  supplies  were 
voted  for  by  him,  but  he  never  ceased  to  urge  upon 
the  President  to  pursue  a  magnanimous  policy  to- 
ward the  distracted  and  misgoverned  country  with 
which  he  had  been  brought  in  collision.  Nothing 
but  the  most  deplorable  infatuation  could  have  led 
the  government  of  Mexico  to  suppose,  that,  after  the 
independence  of  Texas  had  been  recognized  by  the 
United  States,  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Belgium, 
it  would  be  possible  for  a  power  as  feeble  as  that  of 
Mexico  to  reduce  the  rebellious  province  to  sub- 
mission. 

The  settlement  of  the  controversy  with  England 
relative  to  the  boundary  of  Oregon  was  effected  in 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  2$ 5 

the  first  year  of  Mr.  Folk's  administration.  The 
foundations  for  this  adjustment  had  long  been  laid ; 
in  fact,  as  long  ago  as  the  administration  of  Mr. 
Monroe,  the  United  States  had  offered  to  England 
the  obvious  basis  of  the  extension  of  the  forty-ninth 
degree  of  latitude  to  the  Pacific.  Great  Britain  al- 
lowed herself  to  be  influenced  by  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  so  far,  as  to  insist  upon  following  the 
course  of  the  Columbia  down  to  the  sea.  She  even 
took  the  extravagant  ground  that,  although  the 
United  States,  by  the  Louisiana  and  Florida  treaties, 
combined  the  Spanish  and  the  French  titles  with  that 
of  actual  contiguity  and  prior  discovery  of  the 
Columbia  River,  they  had  no  exclusive  title  to  any 
portion  of  the  territory,  but  that  it  was  all  subject 
to  her  own  joint  and  rival  claim.  This  unreason- 
able pretension  brought  the  two  countries  to  the 
verge  of  war.  The  Baltimore  Convention,  in  the 
year  1844,  set  up  a  claim,  equally  unreasonable,  to 
the  whole  of  the  territory.  President  Polk  in  his 
inaugural  message,  quoting  the  words  of  the  res- 
olution of  the  Baltimore  Convention,  pronounced 
our  title  to  the  territory  to  be  "  clear  and 
unquestionable." 

The  assertion  of  these  opposite  extremes  of  pre- 
tension happily  resulted  in  the  final  adjustment  on 
the  forty-ninth  degree.  Mr.  Webster  had  uniformly 
been  of  opinion  that  this  was  the  fair  basis  of  settle- 
ment. Had  he  supposed  that  an  arrangement  could 
have  been  effected  on  this  basis  with  Lord  Ashbur- 
ton,  he  would  gladly  have  included  it  in  the  treaty  of 
Washington.  After  Mr.  Webster's  retirement  from 


256  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

the  Department  of  State,  it  is  stated  by  President 
Polk  that  Mr.  Upshur  instructed  Mr.  Everett  to 
offer  that  line  to  the  British  government;  but  the 
negotiation  had  in  the  mean  time,  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  Mr.  Pakenham,  been  transferred  to  Wash- 
ington. The  offer  of  the  forty-ninth  degree  of  lati- 
tude was  renewed  to  Mr.  Pakenham,  but  accom- 
panied with  conditions  which  led  him  to  decline  it, 
and  to  express  the  hope  that  the  United  States  would 
make  "  some  further  proposal  for  the  settlement  of 
the  Oregon  question  more  consistent  with  fairness 
and  equity,  and  with  the  reasonable  expectations  of 
the  British  government."  The  offer  thus  injudi- 
ciously rejected  was  withdrawn  by  the  administra- 
tion. In  this  dangerous  juncture  of  affairs,  the  fol- 
lowing incidents  occurred,  which  we  give  in  the 
words  of  the  London  Examiner: 

"  In  reply  to  a  question  put  to  him  in  reference  to  the  present 
war  establishments  of  this  country,  and  the  propriety  of  apply- 
ing the  principle  of  arbitration  in  the  settlement  of  disputes 
arising  among  nations,  Mr.  McGregor,  one  of  the  candidates 
for  the  representation  of  Glasgow,  took  occasion  to  narrate  the 
following  very  important  and  remarkable  anecdote  in  connec- 
tion with  our  recent,  but  now  happily  terminated  differences 
with  the  United  States  on  the  Oregon  question.  At  the  time 
our  ambassador  at  Washington,  the  Hon.  Mr.  Pakenham, 
refused  to  negotiate  on  the  forty-ninth  parallel  of  north  lati- 
tude as  the  basis  of  a  treaty,  and  when  by  that  refusal  the 
danger  of  a  rupture  between  Great  Britain  and  America  became 
really  imminent,  Mr.  Daniel  Webster,  formerly  Secretary  of 
State  to  the  American  government,  wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  Mc- 
Gregor, in  which  he  strongly  deprecated  Mr.  Pakenham's  con- 
duct, which,  if  persisted  in  and  adopted  at  home,  would,  to  a 
certainty,  embroil  the  two  countries,  and  suggested  an  equitable 
compromise,  taking  the  forty-ninth  parallel  as  the  basis  of  an 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  257 

adjustment.  Mr.  McGregor  agreeing  entirely  with  Mr.  Web- 
ster in  the  propriety  of  a  mutual  giving  and  taking  to  avoid  a 
rupture,  and  the  more  especially  as  the  whole  territory  in  dis- 
pute was  not  worth  £20,000  to  either  power,  while  the  prepara- 
tions alone  for  a  war  would  cost  a  great  deal  more  before  the 
parties  could  come  into  actual  conflict,  communicated  the  con- 
tents of  Mr.  Webster's  letter  to  Lord  John  Russell,  who  at  the 
time  was  living  in  the  neighborhood  of  Edinburgh,  and,  in 
reply,  received  a  letter  from  Lord  John,  in  which  he  stated  his 
entire  accordance  with  the  proposal  recommended  by  Mr.  Web- 
ster, and  approved  of  by  Mr.  McGregor,  and  requested  the 
latter,  as  he  (Lord  John)  was  not  in  a  position  to  do  it  him- 
self, to  intimate  his  opinion  to  Lord  Aberdeen.  Mr.  McGregor, 
through  Lord  Canning,  Under-Secretary  for  the  Foreign  De- 
partment, did  so,  and  the  result  was,  that  the  first  packet  that 
left  England  carried  out  to  America  the  proposal,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  communication  already  referred  to,  on  which  the 
treaty  of  Oregon  was  happily  concluded.  Mr.  McGregor  may, 
therefore,  be  very  justly  said  to  have  been  the  instrument  of 
preserving  the  peace  of  the  world;  and,  for  that  alone,  even  if 
he  had  no  other  services  to  appeal  to,  he  has  justly  earned  the 
applause  and  admiration,  not  of  his  own  countrymen  only,  but 
of  all  men  who  desire  to  promote  the  best  interests  of  the 
human  race." 

Without  wishing  to  detract  in  any  degree  from 
the  praise  due  to  Mr.  McGregor  for  his  judicious 
and  liberal  conduct  on  this  occasion,  the  credit  of 
the  main  result  is  exclusively  due  to  his  American 
correspondent.  A  powerful  influence  was  ascribed 
also  to  an  able  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for 
April,  1845,  m  which  the  reasonableness  of  this 
basis  of  settlement  was  set  forth  with  great  ability. 

The  first  session  of  the  Twenty-ninth  Congress 
was  signalized  by  the  revival  of  the  sub-treasury 
system,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  tariff  of  1842. 
At  a  moment  when  the  public  finances  were,  in  ref- 

A.  B.,  VOL.  VI. —  17 


258  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

erence  to  the  means  of  collection,  custody,  and  trans- 
fer, in  a  sound  and  healthy  condition,  the  adminis- 
tration deemed  it  expedient  to  subject  the  country 
and  the  treasury  to  the  hazard  and  inconvenience 
of  a  change.  Mr.  Webster  spoke  with  equal  earnest- 
ness and  power  against  the  renewal  of  experiments 
which  had  already  proved  so  disastrous ;  but  the  bill 
was  carried  by  a  party  vote.  The  same  success 
attended  the  President's  recommendation  of  an  en- 
tire change  in  the  revenue  system,  by  which,  instead 
of  specific  duties,  ad  valorem  duties  were  to  be  as- 
sessed on  the  foreign  valuation.  Various  other 
changes  were  made  in  the  tariff  established  in  1842, 
equally  tending  to  depress  our  own  manufactures, 
and  to  give  a  preference  to  foreign  over  native  labor, 
and  this  even  in  cases  where  no  benefit  could  be 
expected  to  accrue  to  the  treasury  from  the  change. 
Mr.  Webster  made  a  truly  Herculean  effort  against 
the  government  project,  in  his  speech  of  the  25th  and 
26th  of  July,  1846,  but  the  decree  had  gone  forth. 
The  scale  was  turned  by  the  Senators  from  the  new 
State  of  Texas,  which  had  been  brought  into  the 
Union  by  the  votes  of  members  of  Congress  whose 
constituents  had  the  deepest  interest  in  sustaining 
the  tariff  of  1842. 

In  the  spring  of  1847,  after  the  adjournment  of 
Congress,  Mr.  Webster  undertook  a  tour  to  the 
South.  His  object  was  to  pass  by  the  way  of  the 
Atlantic  States  to  New  Orleans,  and  to  ascend  the 
Mississippi.  He  had  never  seen  that  part  of  the 
Union,  and  promised  himself  equal  gratification  and 
instruction  from  an  opportunity,  however  brief,  of 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  259 

personal  inspection.  He  was  ever  of  opinion  that 
higher  motives  than  those  of  curiosity  and  recrea- 
tion should  lead  the  citizens  of  different  parts  of 
the  country  to  the  interchange  of  visits  of  this  kind. 
That  they  had  become  so  much  less  frequent  than 
they  were  in  former  years  he  regarded  as  one  of  the 
inauspicious  features  of  the  times.  He  was  accom- 
panied on  this  excursion  by  his  family.  They  passed 
hastily  through  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  to 
South  Carolina.  At  Charleston  he  was  received 
with  the  most  distinguished  attention  and  cordial- 
ity. He  was  welcomed  on  his  arrival  by  an  assem- 
blage of  the  most  respectable  citizens.  Entertain- 
ments were  given  him  by  the  New  England  Society 
of  Charleston  and  by  the  Charleston  Bar.  At  these 
festivals  the  sentiments  and  speeches  were  of  the 
most  cordial  description.  Similar  hospitalities  and 
honors  were  paid  him  at  Columbia,  Augusta,  and 
Savannah.  No  trace  of  sectional  or  party  feeling 
detracted  from  the  warmth  of  his  reception.  His 
visit  was  everywhere  regarded  as  an  interesting  pub- 
lic event.  Unhappily,  his  health  failed  him  on  his 
arrival  at  Savannah;  and  the  advance  of  the  season 
made  it  impossible  for  him  to  execute  the  original 
project  of  a  journey  to  New  Orleans.  He  was  com- 
pelled to  hasten  back  to  the  North. 

Meantime  events  of  higher  importance  were  in 
progress.  Success  crowned  our  arms  in  the  Mexi- 
can war.  The  military  skill,  gallantry,  and  indom- 
itable resolution  of  the  great  captains  to  whom  the 
chief  command  of  the  war  had  been  committed 
(though  not  by  the  first  choice  of  the  administra- 


260  AMERICAN    BIOGRAPHY 

tion),  aided  by  the  spirit  and  discipline  of  the 
troops,  achieved  the  conquest  of  Mexico.  Peace  was 
dictated  to  her  from  Washington,  and  a  treaty  con- 
cluded, by  which  extensive  portions  of  her  territory, 
comprising  the  province  of  New  Mexico  and  a  con- 
siderable part  of  California,  were  ceded  to  the 
United  States.  Mr.  Webster,  foreseeing  that  these 
cessions  would  prove  a  Pandora's  box  of  discord  and 
strife  between  the  different  sections  of  the  Union, 
voted  against  the  ratification  of  the  treaty.  He  was 
sustained  in  this  course  by  some  Southern  Whig 
Senators,  but  the  constitutional  majority  deemed  any 
treaty  better  than  the  continuation  of  the  war. 

With  the  restoration  of  peace,  the  question  what 
should  be  done  with  the  territories  presented  itself 
with  alarming  prominence.  Formidable  under  any 
circumstances,  it  became  doubly  so  in  consequence 
of  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California,  and  the  pro- 
digious rush  to  that  quarter  of  adventurers  from 
every  part  of  the  world.  Population  flocked  into 
and  took  possession  of  the  country,  its  ancient  polit- 
ical organization,  feeble  at  best,  was  subverted,  and 
the  immediate  action  of  Congress  was  necessary  to 
prevent  a  state  of  anarchy.  The  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives passed  a  bill  providing  for  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  territorial  government  for  the  provinces 
newly  acquired  from  Mexico,  with  the  anti-slavery 
proviso,  borrowed  from  the  Ordinance  of  1787. 
This  bill  failed  to  pass  the  Senate,  and  nothing  was 
done  at  the  first  session  of  the  Thirtieth  Congress  to 
meet  the  existing  emergency  in  California. 

In  consequence  of  months  of  disagreement  be- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  26 1 

tween  the  Houses  of  Congress  as  to  the  provinces  re- 
cently acquired  from  Mexico,  all  provision  for  the 
territories  was  sacrificed;  but  a  bill  which  had  pre- 
viously passed  the  House,  extending  the  revenue 
laws  of  the  United  States  to  California,  was  passed 
by  the  Senate,  and  rescued  the  people  of  California 
from  an  entire  destitution  of  government  on  behalf 
of  the  United  States.  The  Senate  on  this  occasion 
was,  for  the  first  time  since  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution, on  the  verge  of  disorganization ;  and  it  was 
felt  throughout  the  day  and  night,  that  it  was  saved 
from  falling  into  that  condition  mainly  by  the  par- 
liamentary tact  and  personal  influence  of  Mr.  Web- 
ster. This  tribute  was  paid  to  Mr.  Webster's  ar- 
duous exertions  on  that  occasion  by  a  member  of 
Congress  warmly  opposed  to  him. 

Not  the  least  important  consequence  of  the  Mex- 
ican war  was  the  political  revolution  in  the  United 
States  of  which  it  was  the  cause.  When  the  policy 
of  invading  and  conquering  Mexico  was  determined 
upon,  it  was  probably  regarded  by  the  administra- 
tion as  a  measure  calculated  to  strengthen  their 
party.  Opponents  were  likely  to  expose  themselves 
to  odium  by  disapproving  the  war.  The  command- 
ing generals  were  both  Whigs,  and  one  of  them  had 
been  named  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  It 
was  probably  thought  that,  if  they  succeeded,  the 
glory  would  accrue  to  the  administration;  if  they 
failed,  the  discredit  would  fall  upon  themselves. 

If  anticipations  like  these  were  formed,  they  were 
signally  disappointed.  A  series  of  the  most  brill- 
iant triumphs  crowned  the  arms  both  of  General 


262  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

Taylor  and  General  Scott.  Those  of  General  Tay- 
lor were  first  in  time ;  and  as  they  had  been  preceded 
by  doubts,  anxieties,  and,  in  the  case  of  Buena  Vista, 
by  rumors  of  disaster,  they  took  the  stronger  hold 
of  the  public  mind.  The  nomination  for  the  Presi- 
dency was  not  reserved  for  the  Whig  convention. 
It  was  in  effect  made  at  Palo  Alto  and  Monterey, 
and  was  confirmed  at  Buena  Vista.  It  was  a  move- 
ment of  the  people  to  which  resistance  was  in  vain. 

Statesmen  and  civilians,  however,  might  well 
pause  for  a  moment.  The  late  experience  of  the 
country,  under  a  President  elected  in  consequence 
of  military  popularity,  was  not  favorable  to  a  repe- 
tition of  the  experiment;  and  General  Taylor  was 
wholly  unknown  in  political  life.  At  the  Whig  con- 
vention in  Philadelphia  other  distinguished  Whigs, 
General  Scott,  Mr.  Clay,  and  Mr.  Webster,  had  di- 
vided the  votes  with  General  Taylor.  He  was,  how- 
ever, selected  by  a  great  majority  as  the  candidate 
of  the  party.  Mr.  Webster  took  the  view  of  this 
nomination  which  might  have  been  expected  from 
a  veteran  statesman  and  a  civilian  of  forty  years' 
experience  in  the  service  of  the  country.  He  had, 
in  common  with  the  whole  Whig  party,  in  General 
Jackson's  case,  opposed  the  nomination  of  a  military 
chieftain. 

On  his  accession  to  the  Presidency,  however,  Gen- 
eral Taylor  found  Mr.  Webster  disposed  and  pre- 
pared to  give  his  administration  a  cordial  and  effi- 
cient support. 

In  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1849  events  of  the 
utmost  importance  occurred  in  California.  The 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  263 

people  of  that  region,  left  almost  entirely  without 
a  government  by  Congress,  met  in  convention  to 
form  a  constitution ;  and  although  nearly  half  of  the 
members  who  were  new-comers  were  from  the 
Southern  States,  they  unanimously  agreed  to  the 
prohibition  of  slavery.  The.  constitution  prepared 
by  the  convention  was  accepted  by  the  people,  and 
with  it  they  applied  for  admission  to  the  Union. 

Other  occurrences,  however,  had  in  the  meantime 
taken  place,  which  materially  increased  the  difficul- 
ties attending  the  territorial  question.  The  subject 
of  slavery  had  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years  been  agi- 
tated with  steadily  increasing  warmth,  and  for  the 
latter  portion  of  the  period  with  growing  violence. 
On  the  acquisition  of  the  Mexican  provinces,  the 
representatives  of  the  non-slaveholding  States  gen- 
erally deemed  it  their  duty  to  introduce  into  the  acts 
passed  for  their  government  a  restriction  analogous 
to  the  anti-slavery  proviso  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787. 
A  motion  to  this  effect  having  been  made  by  Mr. 
Wilmot  of  Pennsylvania,  by  way  of  amendment  to 
one  of  the  appropriation  bills  passed  during  the  war, 
the  restriction  has  obtained  the  name  of  the  "  Wil- 
mot Proviso."  This  motion  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives was  extensively  seconded  by  the  press,  by 
popular  assemblies,  and  by  legislative  resolutions 
throughout  the  non-slaveholding  States,  and  caused 
a  considerable  increase  of  anti-slavery  agitation. 

The  South,  of  course,  took  an  interest  in  the  ques- 
tion not  inferior  to  that  of  the  North.  The  exten- 
sion of  the  United  States  on  the  southwestern  fron- 
tier had  long  been  a  cardinal  point  in  the  policy  of 


264  AMERICAN    BIOGRAPHY 

most  Southern  statesmen.  The  application  of  an 
anti-slavery  proviso  to  territories  acquired  by  con- 
quest in  that  quarter  came  into  direct  conflict  with 
this  policy.  Meetings  were  accordingly  held  at 
Washington  during  the  first  session  of  the  Thirtieth 
Congress,  attended  by  a  majority  of  the  members 
from  the  slaveholding  States,  to  take  into  considera- 
tion the  measures  proper  to  be  adopted.  At  one  of 
these  meetings  a  sub-committee  was  appointed,  of 
which  Mr.  Calhoun  was  chairman,  to  prepare  an 
address  "  of  the  Southern  delegates  to  their  con- 
stituents." At  a  subsequent  meeting  a  substitute 
for  this  address  was  submitted  to  Mr.  Berrien  of 
Georgia,  under  the  title  of  an  address  "  to  the  people 
of  the  United  States."  The  original  paper  was, 
however,  adopted  in  preference,  and  received  the 
signatures  of  forty-eight  of  the  members  of  Con- 
gress from  the  slaveholding  States.  Of  these  all  but 
two  were  of  the  Democratic  party. 

These  proceedings  contributed  materially  to  in- 
crease the  discontents  existing  at  the  South.  Nor 
was  the  progress  of  excitement  less  rapid  at  the 
North.  The  nomination  of  General  Taylor  by  the 
Whig  convention,  accompanied  by  the  refusal  of  that 
convention  to  countenance  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  led 
to  the  organization  of  the  Free  Soil  party  in  the  non- 
slaveholding  States.  In  the  summer  of  1848,  a  con- 
vention of  delegates  of  this  party  assembled  at 
Buffalo  in  New  York,  at  which  an  anti-slavery 
platform  was  adopted,  and  Mr.  Van  Buren  was 
nominated  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency. 

These  occurrences  and  the  state  of  feeling  which 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  265 

they  created,  or  indicated,  appeared  to  Mr.  Webster 
to  constitute  a  crisis  in  the  condition  of  the  country 
of  a  most  formidable  description.  Opinion  at  the 
North  and  South  had,  in  his  judgment,  either 
reached,  or  was  rapidly  reaching,  a  point  at  which 
the  cooperation  of  the  two  sections  of  the  country 
in  carrying  on  the  government  as  coequal  members 
of  the  Federal  Union  would  cease  to  be  practicable. 
The  constitutional  opinions  and  the  views  on  the 
subject  of  slavery  set  forth  in  Mr.  Calhoun's  address 
he  deemed  to  be  such  as  could  never  be  acquiesced 
in  by  the  non-slaveholding  States.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  organization  of  a  party  on  the  basis  of 
anti-slavery  agitation  at  the  North  appeared  to  him 
equally  menacing  to  the  Union.  The  professions 
of  attachment  to  the  Union  and  the  Constitution 
made  on  both  sides,  and  often,  no  doubt,  in  entire 
good  faith,  did  but  increase  the  danger,  by  their 
tendency  to  produce  misapprehension  and  self-de- 
ception as  to  the  really  irreconcilable  nature  of  the 
opposite  extremes  of  opinion. 

It  was  his  profound  and  anxious  sense  of  the 
dangers  of  the  Union,  in  this  crisis  of  affairs,  which 
reconciled  Mr.  Webster  to  the  nomination  of  General 
Taylor.  He  saw  in  his  position  as  a  citizen  of  a 
Southern  State  and  a  slaveholder  the  basis  of  support 
to  his  administration  from  that  quarter  of  the 
Union;  while  his  connection  with  the  Whig  party, 
the  known  moderation  of  his  views,  with  his  declared 
sentiments  on  the  subject  of  the  Presidential  veto, 
were  a  sufficient  ground  for  the  confidence  of  the 
North.  In  fact,  in  the  existing  state  of  things,  it 


266  AMERICAN  BIOGRAPHY 

was  soon  apparent  that  there  was  no  other  candidate 
of  either  party  so  well  calculated  to  allay  sectional 
differences,  and  guide  the  vessel  of  state  over  the 
stormy  sea  of  excitement  and  agitation. 

But  whatever  reliance  might  justly  have  been 
placed  upon  the  character  and  disposition  of  General 
Taylor,  the  prospect  of  affairs  was  sufficiently  dark 
and  inauspicious.  Thoughtful  persons  looked  for- 
ward to  a  struggle  on  the  territorial  question,  at  the 
first  session  of  the  Thirty-first  Congress,  which 
would  convulse  the  country.  In  this  state  of  things 
the  event  which  we  have  already  alluded  to  took 
place,  and  California  presented  herself  for  admission 
as  a  State,  with  a  constitution  prohibiting  slavery. 
As  California  was  the  only  portion  of  the  Mexican 
territory  in  reference  to  which  the  question  was  of 
practical  importance,  Mr.  Webster  derived  from  this 
unexpected  and  seasonable  occurrence  a  gleam  of 
hope.  It  removed  a  topic  of  controversy  in  refer- 
ence to  which  it  had  seemed  hopeless  to  propose  any 
terms  of  compromise ;  and  it  opened  as  it  were  provi- 
dentially, the  door  for  an  understanding  on  other 
points,  on  the  basis  of  carrying  into  execution  exist- 
ing compacts  and  constitutional  provisions  on  the 
one  hand,  and  not  strenuously  insisting,  on  the  other 
hand,  upon  applying  the  anti-slavery  proviso  where, 
as  in  Utah  and  New  Mexico,  he  was  persuaded  it 
could  be  of  no  practical  importance. 

On  these  principles,  and  with  this  object  in  view, 
Mr.  Webster  made  his  great  speech  of  the  7th  of 
March,  1850. 

It  would  be  too  much  to  expect,  in  reference  to  a 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  267 

subject  of  so  much  difficulty,  and  one  on  which  the 
public  mind  has  been  so  greatly  excited,  that  a  speech 
of  this  description  should  find  universal  favor  in  any 
part  of  the  country.  It  is  believed,  however,  that  by 
the  majority  of  patriotic  and  reflecting  citizens  in 
every  part  of  the  United  States,  while  on  single 
topics  there  may  be  differences  of  opinion,  it  has 
been  regarded  as  holding  out  a  practical  basis  for 
the  adjustment  of  controversies,  which  had  already 
gone  far  to  dissolve  the  Union,  and  could  not  be 
much  longer  pursued  without  producing  that  result. 
If  those  who  have  most  strongly  expressed  their  dis- 
sent from  the  doctrines  of  the  speech  (we  do  not,  of 
course,  allude  to  the  mere  clamor  of  political  or  per- 
sonal enemies)  had  paused  from  the  work  of  denun- 
ciation, and  make  the  attempt  themselves  to  lay  down 
a  practicable  platform  on  which  this  great  contro- 
versy could  in  fact  be  settled,  and  the  union  of  the 
States  perpetuated,  they  would  not  find  it  so  hard 
to  censure  what  is  done  by  others  as  to  do  better 
themselves.  It  was  quite  easy  to  construct  a  South- 
ern platform  or  a  Northern  platform;  the  difficulty 
was  to  find  a  basis  on  which  South  and  North  will 
be  able  and  willing  to  stand  together.  Of  all  those 
who  have  condemned  the  views  of  Mr.  Webster, 
who  has  gone  further  than  he,  in  the  speech  of  the 
7th  of  March,  1850,  to  furnish  such  a  basis?  Or 
rather,  we  may  ask,  who  of  those  that  have  been 
loudest  in  condemnation  of  his  course  has  taken  a 
single  step  toward  effecting  this  paramount  object? 
Mr.  Webster's  thoughts  are  known  to  have  been 
earnestly  and  profoundly  employed  on  this  subject 


268  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

from  the  commencement  of  the  session.  He  saw 
beforehand  the  difficulties  and  the  dangers  incident 
to  the  step  which  he  adopted,  but  he  believed  that, 
unless  some  such  step  was  taken  in  the  North,  the 
separation  of  the  States  was  inevitable.  The  known 
state  of  opinion  of  leading  members  of  Congress  led 
him  to  look  for  little  support  from  them.  He  opened 
the  matter  to  some  of  his  political  friends,  but  they 
did  not  encourage  him  in  the  course  he  felt  bound  to 
pursue.  He  found  that  he  could  not  expect  the  co- 
operation of  the  members  of  Congress  from  his  own 
State,  nor  that  of  many  of  the  members  from  the 
other  Northern  States.  He  gave  up  all  attempt  to 
rally  beforehand  a  party  which  would  sustain  him. 
His  own  description  of  his  feelings  at  the  time  was, 
"  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  embark  alone  on 
what  he  was  aware  would  prove  a  stormy  sea,  be- 
cause, in  that  case,  should  final  disaster  ensue,  there 
would  be  but  one  life  lost."  But  he  believed  that  the 
step  which  he  was  about  to  take  would  be  sanctioned 
by  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  in  that  reliance  he 
went  forward. 

While  the  compromise  measures  were  still  unde- 
cided before  Congress,  about  midsummer  of  1850, 
President  Taylor  was  removed  from  his  high  office 
by  death.  In  the  reorganization  of  the  Executive 
occasioned  by  this  event,  Mr.  Webster,  to  the  gen- 
eral satisfaction  of  the  country,  was  placed  by  Presi- 
dent Fillmore  at  the  head  of  the  administration,  as 
the  Secretary  of  State. 

At  this  point — with  the  exception  of  an  eloquent 


DANIEL    WEBSTER  269 

eulogy  of  his  friend  as  an  unselfish  citizen  and  a 
great  statesman — ends  Mr.  Everett's  biographical 
memoir  of  Daniel  Webster.  Writing  as  he  did 
while  Mr.  Webster  was  still  living  (the  memoir  be- 
ing prefatory  to  an  edition  of  the  great  man's 
WTorks).  Mr.  Everett's  sense  of  delicacy  prevented 
his  mention  of  one  notable  element  of  Mr.  Web- 
ster's life,  his  honorable  ambition  for  the  Presidency. 

In  1848,  the  general  feeling  of  his  friends  was 
that  he  would  receive  the  Whig  nomination;  but 
the  popularity  of  General  Zachary  Taylor,  the  hero 
of  the  Mexican  War,  effected  the  nomination  and 
election  of  that  officer.  In  1850,  during  the  debates 
on  Clay's  Compromise  measures,  Mr.  Webster  de- 
livered his  famous  "  Seventh  of  March "  speech, 
alluded  to  above.  His  ardent  belief  in  the  Union, 
dread  of  civil  war — which  he  felt  to  be  approaching 
unless  it  could  be  prevented  by  conciliation  and 
horror  of  secession — against  which  that  speech  con- 
tained a  thrillingly  powerful  appeal,  led  him  to  urge 
the  Compromise,  and  even  to  justify  the  Fugitive 
Slave  bill  which  was  a  part  of  it.  The  anti-slavery 
sentiment  of  the  North  violently  repudiated  this, 
as  a  bid  for  Southern  Whig  favor;  but  most  un- 
justly in  the  case  of  this  man,  who  had  never 
swerved  from  principle  for  personal  profit.  In 
1852,  however,  after  his  successful  service  as  the 
head  of  Mr.  Tyler's  cabinet  (following  President 
Taylor's  death  in  1850),  Mr.  Webster's  friends 
again  looked  for  his  nomination;  but  he  was  not 
forgiven,  and  the  honor  went  to  General  Scott. 

In  May  of  that  year,  Mr.  Webster  was  seriously 


LIBRARY 


270  AMERICAN   BIOGRAPHY 

injured  in  a  carriage  accident  at  his  farm  in  Marsh- 
field,  Mass.,  and  the  effects  of  this,  of  his  forty 
years  of  laborious  public  service,  and  of  the  rapid 
advance  of  some  chronic  ailments  —  perhaps,  too,  the 
mortification  of  disappointment  at  being  misjudged 
and  at  missing  the  crowning  ambition  of  his  life  — 
swiftly  undermined  his  health.  He  died  at  Marsh- 
field,  October  24,  1852,  at  seventy  years  of  age. 

Dr.  John  Lord,  in  his  "  Beacon  Lights  of  His- 
tory," has  well  summed  up  Webster's  character. 
Recognizing  his  defects,  he  adds  :  "  But  these  were 
overbalanced  by  the  warmth  of  his  affection  for  his 
faithful  friends,  simplicity  of  manners  and  of  taste, 
courteous  treatment  of  opponents,  dignity  of  char- 
acter, kindness  to  the  poor,  hospitality,  enjoyment 
of  rural  scenes  and  sports,  profound  religious  in- 
stincts, devotion  to  what  he  deemed  the  welfare  of 
his  country,  independence  of  opinions  and  boldness 
in  asserting  them  at  any  hazard  and  against  all 
opposition,  and  unbounded  contempt  of  all  shams 
and  tricks.  .  .  .  His  fame  will  spread,  and 
grow  wider  and  greater,  like  that  of  Bacon  and 
Burke,  and  of  other  benefactors  of  mankind;  and 
his  ideas  will  not  pass  away  until  the  glorious  fabric 
of  American  institutions,  whose  foundations  were 
laid  by  God-fearing  people,  shall  be  utterly  de- 
stroyed, and  the  Capitol  where  his  noblest  efforts 
were  made  shall  become  a  mass  of  broken  and  pros- 
trate columns  beneath  the  debris  of  the  nation's 
ruin." 


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